by Tony Nalley
Lights from lanterns up ahead of us swung this way and that, causin’ shadows to be cast back and forth along the corridor!
Cricket grabbed my hand hard and pulled me back down the passageway fast!
She led me to a narrow crevasse in the wall where we quickly ducked inside and dropped down upon our knees onto the cold stone floors and frantically struggled to keep totally out of sight and become quiet!
Our flashlights went dark! And Cricket held her breath!
We heard the voices then! Voices comin’ directly from ahead of us!
“I told you we should’ve killed em’!” One of the voices said. “Then none of this would be happenin’! And we wouldn’t be in here lookin’ for em’ now!”
“I’m telling you that you’d better keep your mouth shut!” Another voice answered. “You don’t want word to get back to him that you don’t agree! It wasn’t your call to make!” He continued. “I say that if that fool can find it, then let him! And then we kill em’ all! And get the hell out of this boondocks town, just like we’d planned!”
Me and Cricket breathed in and out as quietly as we possibly could! Our hearts pounded like drums within our chests! I closed my eyes and I prayed!
I couldn’t make out their voices. They didn’t sound familiar to me. And Cricket wasn’t movin’. She had completely tensed up. And she was holdin’ on to my hand really tight! I could tell that she was scared!
“You know whats gonna happen don’t you?” The first man replied. “He’ll find that damned thing and then all hell’s gonna break loose! That’s whats gonna happen! That’s if the dogs don’t get him first!” he said as he laughed. “But either way, there’s gonna be blood! You mark my words on that! When the Blood Moon rises, that prophecy will be fulfilled! And there’s gonna be blood! You mark my words!”
“Yeah …yeah I hear you! But I still say that you’d better keep your mouth shut!” Came the voice of the other. “You’re startin’ to sound like a believer! And we don’t want to let them go and…”
“What was that?” The first man interrupted and stopped directly before us, holdin’ out his lantern to see by its light.
We remained completely still.
“Awe …that’s nothin’…it’s probably just a rat that crawled in here no doubt!” The other man answered dismissin’ his words as they continued on. And as their shadows passed before us and continued their stride down a distant corridor, their voices soon faded away into a muffled silence.
Cricket’s grip began to ease up a little, and we both tried to breathe somewhat normally again. But as I opened my eyes and started to rise up from the floor, she quickly put her hand out, pressed it against my chest and bade me to stay.
“Close your eyes for me Toby.” She whispered to me softly. “Please close your eyes for me.”
I eased back then in the darkness as she spoke and I told her that I would. Though it was too dark to see anythin’ as it was, I still closed my eyes again just like she’d asked me to.
Cricket took my hand then and she placed it to her chest and cupped her hand around mine.
“Do you feel my heart beating, Toby?” She asked me.
I could feel her heart beatin’.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
I could feel my face blush red too! And my temperature as it started to rise!
So I nodded my head and grunted in answer “Um hum.”
“See me with your heart Toby.” She whispered sweetly. “Don’t always trust what you see with your eyes.” She whispered again. “When you see me …always see me with your heart, Okay?”
I knew she was tryin’ to tell me somethin’ without comin’ right out and sayin’ it. Girls were like that. They would tell you somethin’ without actually givin’ you enough information to figure out what on earth it was that they were tryin’ to say! And then they’d just expect you to know what they meant! You know? I knew that I’d probably get better at figurin’ out and decodin’ their secret ways of talkin’ over time, but I also knew that it wasn’t gonna be anytime soon! So I just said what all guys say who happened to be in the same kind of situation that I was in.
I said, “Okay.” And then I just left it at that.
As we rose up from the cavern floor I turned to the right expectin’ Cricket to follow, but she stopped me and pulled me towards her in a different direction.
“We’ve gotta go to the Grand Hall. Isn’t this the right way? Isn’t this the way we need to go?” I whispered as I stopped and nodded my head in that direction.
“Not if there are more of them down there.” She whispered back. “We could get trapped in that passageway. There’s no other way in or out! All of the doors are sealed or locked and we could be boxed in! We’ll go on up top. It’ll be safer that way!”
“Up top?” I hesitantly asked.
Cricket turned her flashlight back on and grabbed my hand again, and pulled me after her. She led me back down the passageway. But this time turnin’ sharply to the right, disappearin’ into a niche that seemed like it was nothin’ more than a crack in the cavern wall. It was too small for a full size grown up to squeeze through, but we managed to slip through fairly easily as we turned our bodies sideways and stepped through one leg at a time. Once inside we made our way along a windin’ upwardly narrowed path, where the feel of the cavern’s floor changed beneath our feet. It was softer somehow, no longer hard stone. I reached down and picked up a cool and somewhat moistened fist full of soft rich dirt!
The passageway opened up then as we made our way to the end, into a large and open mammoth cave-like chamber where lights illuminated from its ceilin’ and to where an enormous ancient tree with gigantic branches grew at its center! Its roots were firmly planted in the chamber’s earthly floor while its twisted majestic branches grew outwards and onwards towards the heavens, reachin’ upwards through its ceilin’ into the daylight!
“Hard to imagine this was once just a baby tree, huh?” Cricket said to me as she turned off her flashlight that was no longer needed due to the bits of sky above us that lit up the room. “It was planted here at the beginning. Its beautiful aint it?” She whispered.
Cricket led me to the base of the tree where she placed my hands upon its bark and I looked up into its many branches and into the partially opened skies above it.
“Yes.” I said in answer. “This is incredible!”
Cricket pulled me close to her then pointin’ upwards towards a small ledge that ran along the top of the cavern wall. I could see there was an openin’! It was to the top where she’d pointed, and it was where she told me we needed to go.
“I found it a while back on accident.” she said. “Just the other side of it opens up to the balcony that runs along the top edge looking out over the Grand Hall.” She continued. “We’ll be able to see everything from up there, and be able to hide better too!”
I wasn’t good at climbin’ trees, but Cricket climbed up that one just like a cat; reachin’ down to help me as she climbed!
I hadn’t noticed it before but she smelled of sweet honeysuckles and vanilla. She smelled good. And watchin’ her above me as she stretched out her tanned legs to climb made me feel dizzy again. And just as I reached for one of the trees huge rounded branches, I lost my footing and I slipped …nearly plummeting to my death upon the solid ground below! But Cricket reached out her hand to me at the last second and caught me, pullin’ me to safety, where we sat together on that branch for a little while! And I caught my breath and looked down from its towerin’ heights!
We stepped from the tree onto the caverns ledge moments later and entered through the openin’ that would lead us to the balcony above the Grand Hall. This passage was much like that of the tunnel me and Colby had used when we had first discovered the cave. It seemed like that had been ages ago! Except instead of crawlin’ this time, me and Cricket had to slip through this one standin’ up and twistin’ our bodies back and forth in such a way as to keep ourselve
s from bein’ impaled on the jagged rocks within its depths.
We saw lights up ahead of us as we exited the passage and then kept to the shadows upon the balcony’s ledge. The Grand Hall of the Citadel lay below us …well lighted, with torches and men carryin’ boxes and movin’ things around. I turned my gaze to the ceilin’ and read the name once again, written in white stone. ‘Lystre.’
The citadel was enormous! It was remarkable! But it was far less mysterious now that I understood it all. And as I looked about the room from my hidin’ place in the shadows, I realized that we were positioned directly above the thrones that sat at the rooms’ focal point, where I had traced the letters in the cold stone beneath em’. But this time, I understood the context of those words. They were Man too! They had been made in His image as well, yet they had been bound to their plight by the curse.
“This is not good.” Cricket whispered to me. “There are too many of em’!”
“Do you know who they are?” I whispered back.
“No, they are unknown to me. Many have been gathering here lately.” she said. “But the one standing there, the one in the middle …he is their leader. He is the alpha-male.” She whispered as she pointed to the one standin’ in the center of the room.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“I can smell him.” she said as she turned back to me and smiled a teasin’ smile through the shadows. I couldn’t tell if she was bein’ serious with me or just kiddin’ me, but I believed her either way.
“What are they doin’?” I asked. “Can you tell what they’re bringin’ in?”
“I’ll go check it out. Get a better look! You wait right here, Toby!” she said. “I’ll be right back!”
It wasn’t like I could tell her what to do. She was a free spirit! And it wasn’t like I had time to ask her to wait for me neither, cause she was up and off before I even realized that she was even goin’ anywhere! So I just sat there in the shadows and listened to the goin’s on and the happenin’s below, to see if I could overhear somethin’ or see anythin’ that might be of benefit to us.
There was an awful lot of chatter from down below me, mostly from people directin’ others, tellin’ em’ which way and where to go. There must have been another entrance nearby too I reckoned, as many of these people were leavin’ and returnin’ again very quickly as they carried box after box along the cobbled stone floors throughout the Grand Hall!
I looked for their leader again; the one that Cricket had pointed out to me. But he was no longer standin’ in the center of the room. So I slid out slowly from behind the shadows where I sat and I peered slightly over the balcony to the recesses below, where I found him sittin’ upon the right of the two thrones beneath me, with his hand to his chin leanin’ forward on his arm.
He rose up then from his seat upon the pulpit, and he turned his head instinctively and looked up at me where I sat!
I moved backwards quickly into the shadows! But not before I had gotten a glimpse of his eyes! His eyes were cold, cold blue eyes that pierced me like a bullet from a gun!
“WHO LET HIM IN HERE?” The leader shouted and pointed to where I was. “HE’S ON THE BALCONY! GET HIM! GET HIM NOW!”
I heard the howlin’ of the wolves and the thunder of their growls as I backed up again into the shadows against the coldness of the wall! They had found me! They were comin’! I heard rattlin’ like that of chains upon the stone steps as they ran up em’! The ‘werewolves’ were comin’ to get me, comin’ to feast upon my flesh! I heard em’ as they cackled with their eerie sounds of laughter!
“CRICKET!” I shouted. “CRICKET RUN!”
The ‘werewolf’ was upon me before the words had left my mouth! Grabbin’ me up from where I sat and hurlin’ me through the air! I fell against the stone wall by the openin’ and looked into the eyes of a snarlin’ beast; eyes that seemed altogether familiar to me, big beautiful clear blue lovin’ eyes that I remembered!
She dropped an old matted piece of paper upon the floor beside me, drippin’ wet from her drool and then she motioned for me to go back into the passage.
There wasn’t time to think …there wasn’t time to speak …but I reached my hand out to touch her; to touch the glowering beast! And I placed my hand upon her heart, to let her know that I ‘saw her’ …and that I finally understood. And then with the paper in hand I crawled back through the openin’ within the wall.
I heard great wailin’ and gnashin’ of teeth behind me …behind me and then below me as I climbed; climbed up …up …up into the ancient tree and out into the waning daylight!
And I breathed in the fresh summer air of the wood!
I caught a glimpse of her then, as a lone wolf runnin’ by way of the light that danced through the distant trees. She had found her way out! And she would make her way home!
And as I looked up into the heavens and into that golden amber sky, with oscillating clouds movin’ across a disappearin’ sun …I thanked God that she was safe!
And I said my goodbyes to the risin’ of the Crescent Moon.
Twenty Five
A Stone in the Road
She came to me in the night, a vision floatin’ in the air just outside of my bedroom window, tappin’ on the windows glass, whisperin’ my name. “Toby…” She whispered hauntingly and slow. “Toby…” She whispered again beggin’ me to let her in.
I opened up my window and the girl floated into my room, crawlin’ like a cat upon my bed. And as I went to her she reached out for me …and ripped the flesh from my bone!
And then I was standin’ in a darkened room, deep within a freshly dug grave. I laid my shovel down upon the leveled ground and bent and wiped the dirt from the coffin below. I opened its lid and looked down upon the bones of the man within its embrace, dressed entirely in black holdin’ a golden box tightly within his grasp. I reached down and grabbed up the box, prying it from his cold dead hands and I opened it!
A reddish glow of light filled the room! And I looked down upon the Stone of Blood!
And the dead man was awakened!
And he reached out for me with his hands of bone and he seized my fleshly throat!
“Wake up! Wake up Toby!” My sister Anna said as she shook me. “Wake up! Mama says it’s time to get up for school!”
It had only been a dream.
But had it all been a dream?
When was it that the dream started, and which part that I remembered hadn’t been real? And if this were all a dream …when would I awaken from it?
It seemed as though a million kids’ inhabited one small insignificant piece of space and time when those big orange school buses let out and that homeroom bell would ring! Kids would be runnin’ to and from everywhere, gettin’ to wherever they were supposed to be gettin’ to, before the teachers could get after em’.
“And what were we supposed to be learnin’ there anyways?” I wondered. “How to stand in line at lunch or how to sign our names at the top of our papers before we turned em’ in?”
School was always a stone in my path with nothin’ ever really good comin’ out of it except for maybe meetin’ people you’d otherwise never meet, unless they was in the same boat as you!
School days and people always seemed to blend together for me too! There were people who you talked to, and there were people who you didn’t. There were people that you sat with at lunch time and there were the people who only came around you whenever they needed to borrow a dollar! There were people you avoided cause all they ever wanted to do was to fight you for no apparent reason, you or anybody else for that matter! And there were people that you just hung around with for no obvious reason whatsoever, other than just cause you did!
When school started …everythin’ else changed for me. Fun, playin’ games, goin’ outside and ridin’ bikes, everythin’ just changed! My sleepin’ patterns changed, my eatin’ patterns changed! Everythin’ changed except for the way I felt about that girl.
My dream had scared the ever lo
vin’ crap out of me! Don’t get me wrong, it really did! But what had happened in the dream really didn’t happen. It had only been a dream.
What had happened had been incredible!
No one would ever see that girl the way that I saw her. She had been the one who had taught me how to see. And she had saved me, in more ways than I could imagine.
She saved a seat for me too, on the bus ride home beside her. And I sat down with her and I held her hand. Unspoken words could say more than a whisper or a tender touch in the darkness when no one was lookin’. But holdin’ a girls hand in public where everybody could see you said somethin’ too.
