The Black Reckoning

by John Stephens

  “Do something!” she shouted to Kate.

  “Okay! I’ll stop time—”

  “You’ll what?!” This was the first Emma had heard about this power.

  “I’ll stop time! Just—”

  But before she could, there was a squeal of triumph, and the blond giantess leapt back, and the giant who’d captured them scrambled to his feet. As soon as Kate and Emma had regained their balance, they pressed their eyes to the hole in his pocket, expecting to see Michael in the giantess’s hand. But she was holding aloft a plump, fluffy, frantically bleating sheep, which she now brandished in the other giant’s face.

  “Found nothin’, did ya? Just gonna keep this secret, were ya? Ha!”

  “Ah, Sall, I forgot it was there. Don’t tell Big Rog.”

  “ ‘Forgot it was there,’ my foot! You mean you forgot it was there till you got hungry back in your room and had yourself a private little sheepy snack. And I will be tellin’ Big Rog, and you’ll be talkin’ to the Thumb soon enough, believe you me! Now get outta my kitchen ’fore I put you in the pot!”

  Emma and Kate, both now utterly confused, watched the room spin as the giant turned and walked down a long (though no doubt short to the giant) hallway and through a door, which he shut and bolted behind him with a wooden bar.

  They heard a great sigh, then a creaking of wood as the giant settled into a chair. Two mammoth fingers probed down into the pocket, scooped Emma and Kate up and out, and set them on a table. It took them a moment to get their bearings, and Emma looked about the room as the giant reached into his other pocket and pulled out Michael.

  It was a much smaller room than Emma would have expected, for even though the giant was seated, his head nearly brushed the ceiling. As for furniture, there was a table, the stool or chair on which the giant sat, and that was it. A narrow window covered by a loose piece of canvas let in light, and a pile of old, tattered furs against one wall seemed to serve as a bed. The place looked more like a closet than a bedroom, and a small and shabby one at that.

  Yet for all that, it was chock-full of stuff. Teacups, teapots, plates, thimbles, scissors, candleholders, shards of colored glass—red, green, blue, yellow—decorative pins, pieces of cracked enamel, what looked like a doll whose face had been worn off, an array of different-sized knives, a clock that was missing its back, a cobbler’s hob—and everything, obviously, giant-sized.

  There was something altogether odd about the collection, but Emma couldn’t put her finger on exactly what that something was.

  Kate, meanwhile, the moment Michael had been placed on the table, had grabbed him into a hug. Michael was still green-faced and dazed-looking and, in addition, was now covered with sheep fuzz.

  “That was a close one,” the giant said. “What’d you go squawking for? Lucky I had a sheep in there.”

  “It bit me,” Michael said, displaying a red mark on his arm.

  “Emma,” Kate said, holding Michael’s hand in one of hers while reaching out to Emma, “take my hand.”

  “Now, Sall’s gonna tell Big Rog I was hidin’ that sheep and he’s gonna come in here with the Thumb. Nothin’ ever goes right for me.”

  “Emma!” Kate hissed.

  “Hold on.” And Emma actually moved a step farther away from her sister.

  She knew Kate wanted to transport them away. But Emma wasn’t going anywhere without Gabriel. And there was something else too. Over the years, as Emma and her siblings had been bounced from orphanage to orphanage, plunged into the midst of one group of strangers after another, she had developed the skill of discerning, in an instant, which children or adults were threats and which were not. It had never steered her wrong, and right now, it was telling her that the forty-foot-tall creature before them, each of whose teeth was the size of her head, meant them no harm.

  “And can you believe that was me own sister? If me da’ were still alive, you think he’d stand for how they treat me? Getting abused on a daily basis? And this was supposed to be my house when Da’ died! Look where they got me living! In a closet! Ain’t right, no no, ain’t right at all!” The giant seemed to grow wistful. “Ah, me da’ were a wonderful man, he was. I’m named after him, you know—Willy. ‘Old Willy,’ they called him. A gentle soul. And a marvelous whistler. Why—”

  “Hey, you’re not gonna eat us, are you?”

  The giant looked at Emma, then dug a finger in his ear, dislodging several pounds of grayish muck.

  “Huh?”

  “Emma!” Kate reached for her again, but Emma moved even farther away.

  “I said—YOU’RE NOT GOING TO EAT US, ARE YOU?”

  “Shhh!” The giant showered them with warm spittle. “Not so loud! Sall hears you, she’ll stick you in a pie for Big Rog’s dinner and that’ll be that! ’Course I ain’t gonna eat you! Who put an idea like that in your head?”

  “You did! You said to be quiet or it was straight in the pie.”

  “I was talkin’ about Sall. I’d never eat the three a’ you!” And he actually managed to look offended.

  Emma glanced at Kate and Michael. They were both staring up at the giant, and Kate seemed to have relaxed a bit and was no longer reaching for Emma’s hand.

  “What’d you say your name was?” Emma asked.

  “Willy.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, I’m Dorothy. This is my sister, Evelina. And this is my brother, Toadlip.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too. Would you excuse us? I need to talk to them for a second.”

  Emma stepped over to Kate and Michael and turned her back on the giant.

  “Why’d you say my name was Toadlip?” Michael hissed.

  “Because,” Emma hissed back, “we don’t want to use our real names. What if the Dire Magnus is looking for us? Duh!”

  “Yeah, but you two got normal names. Toadlip?”

  “Michael,” Kate said, “let it go.” She looked at Emma. “What’re you doing? Do you really believe he’s not going to eat us?”

  “Yeah. If he was, he would’ve done it by now. And I just know, okay? You’ve gotta trust me. Anyway, I’ve been thinking, what if the Atlas brought us here for a reason? It doesn’t make sense to leave before we figure out what that is. And he lives here. He can help.”

  “As long as he doesn’t eat us,” Michael said.

  “Well, he might eat you,” Emma snapped. “Which would be a huge tragedy, obviously.”

  “Hey—”

  “Please, Kate,” Emma said, turning back to her sister, “I can’t explain it more. I just know we’re supposed to be here is all. Please.”

  Kate didn’t respond right away, and Emma—who knew that Kate’s first and last thought was always to protect them—considered saying that sometimes you had to do things that were dangerous in order to be safe later; sometimes, you had to take chances. But she kept silent. And standing there, waiting, she felt her position as the youngest as she never had before, the fact that she was always having to ask, to convince, to plead. It was never up to her to choose the path; that was Kate’s job, and now Michael’s a little too. She supposed it had always been this way, so why did it rankle? Was it just that this was her book they were going after, or was it something else?

  “Fine,” Kate said. “But stay close. If he tries anything, I can use the Atlas.”

  Emma turned back to the giant, who was blowing his nose on a handkerchief the size of a bedsheet, dislodging half a dozen startled brown bats that flopped about on the table and then took awkward flight. Her first concern now was to get Gabriel released.

  “Listen, Willy—”

  “Uh-oh.” The giant seemed to have had the same idea, for he was twisted about and peering into his leather sack. “He’s gone.”

  “Wait—you mean Gabriel?”

  “Is that his name? Your friend who tried to murder my hand with that toothpick a’ his? He ruined my best bag, he did. Look.”

  Willy held up the pouch, and the children saw a long slice in the bott
om of it. Evidently, Gabriel had woken at some point during their journey and cut his way out. Seeing the hole, Emma was relieved.

  “He escaped is all. He’s probably coming here now to kill you for kidnapping us. Don’t worry. We won’t let him.”

  “Oh. Thanks, I guess.”

  “Sure. So, Willy—”

  “Shhhhh.” He twisted his head toward the door, listening. After a moment, he nodded. “Sorry. Thought I heard the Thumb.”

  Emma had been intending to ask him where exactly they were, what the land was called, and if he knew anything about the Reckoning (posing the question subtly, like, “Soooooo…you know where the Reckoning is?”), but her curiosity got the better of her. “What’s this whole Thumb business?”

  “You mean Big Rog?”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, Big Rog is Sall’s husband. And his thumb, well, it’s the terror a’ the land, it is. You see this thumb here?” He held up his right thumb, which was the size of Emma herself. “This is a respectable thumb. No man need be ashamed of a thumb like that. But Big Rog’s thumb? Why if he wanted to, he could reach up with it and rub out the sun. He holds it over his head in the rain and he don’t get wet. He’s used it to dam rivers so they run backward. A thumb like that’s a thing a’ Fate, with a capital F.” He thought, then added, “And a capital T for Thumb.”

  “So he’s got a big thumb,” Michael asked. “So what?”

  “Well, Toadlip—”

  “My name—”

  “Is Toadlip,” Emma finished. “Go on, Willy.”

  “Everyone knows that a fella’s whole power is in his thumb, don’t they? It’s what separates us from the animals. Opposable thumbs!”

  “That and you being forty feet tall,” Emma said.

  “True. There’s that too. Anyway, he’s the reason I don’t have no friends. Everyone’s too afraid a’ that thumb a’ his. But no more!” And he smiled his huge snaggly smile. “Not when people know that I’m the one that found you three! Ah, if only me da’ could’ve been here. He would’ve been proud, he would. He’s the one who told me about you.”

  The giant leaned down and waggled a massive finger at them while putting on a deep, rumbling voice that was apparently an imitation of his father, “ ‘Now, Willy, you be on the lookout! Ever you see three little wee children, you snatch them up right quick and don’t let no one put ’em in a pie! Remember the prophecy! Remember the prophecy!’ ”

  Emma looked at her brother and sister and saw they had the same surprised expression she did. She’d thought the giant would be helpful, but she never would’ve imagined that he would know about the prophecy, especially since he didn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed.

  Michael said as much: “You know about the prophecy?”

  Willy the Giant made a pshaw face. “Do I know about the prophecy?! Didn’t me da’—he really was the kindest of giants, even let seagulls nest in his hair, not every giant will do that, the poop, you know, can be a bit overwhelming—didn’t he tell me about it when I was only yea high?” He held his hand about ten feet off the floor.

  “See”—Emma turned to her brother and sister—“I told you he could help us!”

  She knew you shouldn’t say I told you so, but sometimes you just had to.

  “So,” Kate said, “you know where the last book is?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I said, do you know where the last book is?”

  “What book?”

  “The last Book of Beginning.”

  “The what of the what?”

  “You know,” Emma said. “The last Book of Beginning! The Reckoning!”

  “Oh.” The giant thought for a moment, then shook his head, smiling innocently. “Nope. Never heard of it.”

  “Wait,” Emma said, getting annoyed and now very consciously not looking at her brother and sister. “What prophecy are you talking about?”

  The giant looked confused. “The dark stranger’s prophecy, the last words he spoke before he took the city. ‘Three children will come, and they will take death from the land.’ And you’re the first children, you’re the first anybody, to come here in thousands of years. And there’s three a’ you. You gotta be them! What prophecy are you talking about?”

  “Oh,” Emma said, “that one. I just got confused for a second. Excuse us again.”

  The children all turned to each other, speaking in quiet (really, their normal) voices that the giant couldn’t hear.

  “Are you guys thinking what I’m thinking?” Emma asked.

  “ ‘Take death from the land,’ ” Michael said. “That’s gotta be the Book of Death, don’t you think? Weird, though, that there’s another prophecy about us.”

  “Whatever,” Emma said. “The book’s here. The Atlas brought us to the right place!” And then, because she couldn’t resist, she added, “I told you so!”

  Kate smiled at her. “You were right.”

  Having Kate smile at her filled Emma with such joy and pride that she felt bad for having said I told you so. But, she reasoned, maybe if Kate and Michael treated her less like a little kid and listened to her ideas, she wouldn’t have to say I told you so. That made her feel better.

  Kate said, “But are we even sure we should be finding the book? Emma, there’s something you don’t know—”

  “Yeah, yeah, we’ll all die if we bring them together! Gabriel told me! But we don’t know that for certain! Dr. Pym was a big fat liar, but maybe he was telling the truth and there really is some part of the prophecy no one knows, like, blah, blah, blah, Michael and Kate and Emma are gonna die unless they blah, blah, blah.”

  “I’m sure that’s what the prophecy says,” Michael muttered.

  “I’m just saying, we don’t know that the Books are gonna kill us, but we do know the Dire Magnus will! So we’ve gotta kill him first! And the only way we can do that is by getting the last book!”

  “I agree,” Michael said. “Whether Dr. Pym was telling the truth or not, if we don’t try to find the Reckoning, we’re just giving up.”

  “See?” Emma said, seizing her sister’s arm. “Please, Kate!”

  Kate’s eyes moved from her brother to her sister, and as Emma watched her sister take a breath, sigh, and nod, she felt a deep sense of relief. She hadn’t realized till then how much she wanted to find the book, how much she needed to, and Emma was about to tell her it would all be okay, and maybe—she might as well plant the idea—Kate and Michael should learn to trust her a little more, when she let out a cry and tumbled forward, senseless, onto the table.

  At the same moment, there was a shattering crack as the door to Willy’s room crashed open, and an enormous, black-bearded giant burst in upon them. He saw the children on the table—Kate holding the now-unconscious Emma—and with a roar swung a massive fist into the side of Willy’s head, knocking him to the floor. With his other hand, which did indeed have a thumb the size of a small locomotive, he swept up the children.

  “I knew I smelled something funny in here!”

  The giant brought them close to his great, grinning mouth as if he would eat them raw, then and there, and growled:

  “Oh aye! Big Rog will be having a feast tonight!”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Big Rog’s Feast

  The children were placed in three separate wooden cages, almost like giant birdcages, which were hung from the branches of a tree in the open area in front of the house. Then Big Rog had Willy, whose nose was bloody and whose eyes were beginning to swell from Big Rog’s clobbering, build up a large fire and carry out several of Sall’s pots and pans, as well as plates, chairs, stools, and tankards.

  “Go spread the word, dum-dum,” Big Rog told Willy after the fire was roaring and an enormous cauldron of water had been brought to a boil. “It’s going to be little-people pie at the Thumb’s tonight! A delicacy not seen or tasted in thousands a’ years! But make sure they know to bring their own beer. Big Rog ain’t running a charity! Now, get on with ya!
” And he aimed a kick at Willy that sent him scurrying away down the valley.

  As her cage turned in the heat fumes rising from the fire, Kate fought to stay calm. Emma was still unconscious; she had not moved or stirred since she’d collapsed in Willy’s room. The three of them were separated, so using the Atlas was not an option. They were on the menu for dinner. So, yes, all that was bad. But on the plus side, they were still alive, Michael still had the Chronicle, Gabriel was still at large and might yet appear and effect a rescue, and, if all else failed, sooner or later they would have to be taken out of the cages to be cooked. Awful as that prospect sounded, chances were that she and Emma and Michael would be then close enough to touch and she could use the Atlas to take them away.

  She just had to remain calm.

  And keep Michael calm.

  “It’s the Reckoning,” he was saying, gripping the bars of his own cage and staring at Emma’s unconscious form. “I knew the Dire Magnus’s ritual did something!”

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because I know.”

  “No offense, Kate, but that’s not really an answer.”

  “We just have to wait. As soon as he takes us out of the cages, I’ll use the Atlas.”

  “But we still have to get the Reckoning!”

  “I know.”

  “And we haven’t heard the rest of that prophecy!”

  “I know.”

  “And what ‘dark stranger’ was Willy talking about? That’s what he said, a ‘dark stranger’ predicted we would come. Who was that…”

  And on and on. She knew it was part of Michael’s personality that he could never stop turning over and examining the same facts and questions, but sometimes it was exhausting. She didn’t know what had happened to Emma, didn’t really know if she’d be okay, didn’t know what the rest of this other prophecy held, didn’t know where the Reckoning was hidden or how they’d find it (which she was still not completely on board with, despite having given in to Michael and Emma), but none of that actually mattered, for she had already willed herself to believe that they would, somehow, survive and be okay.