by Tad Williams
“That doesn’t seem very likely.”
“Whatever. I’m going. If you still want to help me, go downstairs and make sure nobody comes looking for me.” He shouldered his backpack and let himself out, hoping he looked at least a bit more like Indiana Jones than like some snot-nosed little kid running away from home to go live under the picnic table.
The dark shape made the branches tremble as it hopped along above his head. Tyler did his best not to look at it-not that he wanted to, anyway. The squirrel was just plain creepy at the best of times. But now he had a bigger reason to look away.
That’s right, you ugly old devil squirrel. You just keep following me.
He stopped beneath the oak tree, dropped his backpack on the ground, and pretended to be tying his shoes while he felt along the trunk for the long handle of the fruit-picker. Perfect-there it was. Lucinda had left it leaning just where he wanted. He crouched, whistling tunelessly, and waited.
After a few moments he heard the scuttle and spring of the squirrel leaping from a nearby tree to the oak. Tyler kept tying and retying his shoe, waiting until the squirrel, as it usually did, moved to a lower branch. The thing was practically fearless. Well, this time he’d give it something to think about.
The leaves rustled just above him and he looked up slowly. There it was, two limbs up, about four or five feet out of Tyler’s reach even if he jumped. But he wasn’t going to jump. Instead he wrapped his hand around the fruit-picker’s handle and got onto his knees as though he was about to stand up. The squirrel stopped moving, waiting to see if he was going to throw a rock as he had on so many other occasions.
He heaved up the fruit-picker like a giant butterfly net and whacked the basket over the squirrel just as it was about to leap to a higher branch. It squealed, the first time he’d ever heard it make a sound, a ghastly, high-pitched rasp like something being burned alive. It was so horrible that Tyler almost let go of the handle. The thing struggled hard, scrabbling against the thick, strong fabric of the basket. It was all he could do to find the wooden peg bouncing around on the end of the rope, but at last he grabbed it and it pulled the basket shut. The squirrel was still struggling like a mad thing inside it, but for the moment it was caught, snorting and screeching in muffled rage. Tyler considered just bashing the basket against the tree over and over until he killed the thing, but had a sudden fear that he might only release it instead. Judging by the noises it was making, if it got out now it would want to do a lot more than just follow him.
He left the fruit-picker propped against the branch, the rope tied as tightly around the handle as he could manage, to keep the basket closed. Tyler ran off toward the front of the house and the rest of the farm.
I did it! He felt like he could jump over the tall, turreted farmhouse. So what do you think of that, Squirrely?
Not much, judging by the furious sounds from the tree behind him. Not much at all.
It was only a few hundred yards from the house to the silo, if that was what the building really was, but as the lights of the windows faded behind him he felt like he was scuttling across the dead surface of the moon. When he thought he was out of sight of the most likely observers-people tended to cluster at the kitchen end of the house-Tyler switched on his flashlight. The ground was bumpy and uneven, covered with dry grass, and he made as much noise as he dared. He’d seen a rattlesnake once up by the unicorn pasture. He didn’t want to step on one of those in the dark.
The moon was behind the silo so he didn’t even see it until he was close enough to realize that a big black something was blocking the stars. Staring up at the weird shape of it-it really did look like a haunted house-Tyler had some serious second thoughts about the whole thing.
Come on, stupid, he told himself. Don’t be such a wuss. He knew he’d never manage to trap the squirrel again the same way-in fact, he was wondering if he’d ever be able to go outside the house at all with an angry devil squirrel after him. This was probably his one chance.
He had walked past the tall old building enough times to know it had a door on the side perpendicular to the house. He crept around the silo, shining his flashlight and shuffling his feet loudly to warn away any snakes (or extra-large spiders). He found the door and began to look for a handle, but instead the weathered wood just dropped away under his hand with a quiet squeak as it swung open. Not even latched. Tyler swallowed and took a step into the silo, his flashlight held before him like a laser pistol.
It was big inside-that was the first thing he noticed-a big, empty space with a ceiling so far above his head the flashlight beam couldn’t reach it. It was also absolutely and completely empty.
Tyler was standing on a little platform at the top of a flight of wooden steps that led down to the floor, which was about twenty feet below ground level. He swept the flashlight around and down to the floor. Nothing. Not even rats, which he had been thinking about in a slightly worried way. He made his way down the creaking stairs and onto the bottom of the silo. Not just empty, but extremely clean-if anyone had ever stored grain here, they had vacuumed the place out afterward. He shined his light in every corner but saw nothing. The place was empty. If there had been a secret here it must be long gone.
Then a glimmer on the floor caught his eye. He turned the light on it as he approached. Metal-the bolt on a trapdoor in the floor near one edge of the room. The bolt had a brand-new lock through it.
He rattled it in frustration. New and very strong. He had brought a pocketknife, but using a knife on that metal would be like trying to tunnel through a stone with a plastic teaspoon. Something was definitely weird, though. Why leave the front door unlocked but put some monster big lock on this door? What was down there? How could he get through the lock without making so much noise it would bring everyone out of the house? And even if he cut the bolt somehow, how could he replace it so no one would know? The whole thing seemed almost impossible, and certainly wasn’t going to happen tonight-probably his last moment of freedom before he suffered death-by-monster-squirrel.
When he emerged from the dark silo Tyler was amazed to see how much brighter things looked in the light of the moon. He walked around the silo on the far side from the house, shining his flashlight beam along the walls in the unlikely chance there was another door he’d never seen in all the times he’d gone past the odd building.
There was no other door. There was, however, a gap that had opened up between the walls of the silo and the ground itself, like a narrow moat around a medieval castle.
Tyler got down on his knees and looked into the space between the silo and the earth. The walls of the silo extended far down, almost certainly farther than the floor inside, which meant that if he went down far enough and found a way in, he would be on the underside of that tempting, frustratingly locked trapdoor. The boards were thick, but they were also old and had buckled in places, warped by years of moist soil. He hesitated before climbing down into the narrow space beside the foundations of the silo-if there were going to be snakes or giant spiders anywhere, this would be the spot-but his frustration at the idea of never finding out what was in here was stronger.
It wasn’t easy holding the flashlight in his mouth. Tyler was sure he was going to chip a tooth, but he needed both hands to make it down the crumbling earthen wall and into the soft dirt that had collected at the bottom, up against the silo’s wooden boards. He crawled along, pushing on them one after another.
There. That one was loose.
He braced himself with his feet against the wood on either side and began to pull at it. The nails gave a little. After a while he realized he could use the flashlight handle as a crowbar; soon he began to feel the wood loosen. When the board finally came out he tossed it aside and stuck his hand through, swinging the flashlight around in the gap beyond. Nothing. Still dark. He couldn’t even see the floor or the far wall, but if he turned the flashlight up he could see wood close above him. That must be the floor with the hatch door, he realized. If he could get throu
gh, he would indeed be under it!
He managed to work loose the board next to the gap, and after what seemed like another half hour of hard, sweaty work, it came free as well. The last nail pulled out with a screech that did not echo. The gap was just big enough now for him to get his shoulders through sideways.
Tyler had maneuvered his shoulders and arms through the space between the boards when the flashlight fell out of his mouth. He grabbed at it in panic, overbalanced, and tumbled through into suddenly freezing blackness.
Nothing stopped him. Seconds went by and still he plunged downward, as though he was tumbling through the utter emptiness of space. He tried to scream, but no sound came out of his mouth.
Lucinda! His thought was like a leaf whipped in an icy wind. You were right. I’m so stupid…!
Falling. He fell forever. And forever was cold.
Chapter 19
The Secret Guardian
L ucinda had a bad feeling. Actually she had several.
Instead of all of the farm folk being clustered in the kitchen and dining room as they usually were-where she could keep an eye on them, as Tyler had asked-most of them appeared to have chosen this night, of all nights, to be somewhere else. Mr. Walkwell and Ragnar had gone out after dinner on some mysterious special task, the kitchen workers told her, Uncle Gideon was simply absent again, and Haneb was at the Sick Barn looking in on Meseret, who had been acting strangely since she had lost her egg-so much so that everyone was afraid she was sick with some unknown dragon illness. Even the Three Amigos had vanished, perhaps gone with Mr. Walkwell and Ragnar, perhaps just back to their cabin on the far side of the farm or off to the dormitory to play cards with the other farmhands-no one could say. Only old Caesar, Sarah, the cook, and her two helpers, little Pema and tall Azinza, were in the kitchen, the women washing dishes while Caesar prepared to take a tray with tea and sandwiches up to Gideon.
Which meant, Lucinda thought miserably, that Tyler could stumble into any number of people out there and get both of them in serious trouble.
She picked up a dish towel and started drying.
“So where’s Mrs. Needle?” she asked after a while.
Azinza frowned at her. “Child, why do you ask so many questions tonight? Mrs. Needle, she does not like us talking about her.”
Sarah made a snorting noise. “That is the truth. She is secret like a wall with no window, that one.”
Caesar paused in the kitchen doorway, the tray balanced on one hand. “You womenfolk do know that the devil finds work for idle hands, don’t you? And idle tongues too.” Shaking his head, he went out.
“I think Mrs. Needle have tea with Mr. Gideon,” Pema offered suddenly, breaking the silence that followed. She had the habit of looking down and speaking very quietly, so that sometimes you could only hear the soft murmur of a voice, but no words at all. She was pretty, too, like a doll, and although she looked older than Lucinda, she was half a head shorter. Being around Pema made Lucinda feel like a horse or something even clumsier.
“Oh, she’s probably having tea, all right,” said Sarah, her mouth tight and her pale skin flushed with some emotion Lucinda couldn’t quite read. “With her little friend.”
“Colin?” asked Lucinda.
“He wishes that were true,” Sarah said with a snort. “If she paid half as much mind to her fatherless child as she does to that animal, the boy wouldn’t be up to such strange mischief…”
Pema took an audible breath. Even tall Azinza straightened up as though Sarah had said something dangerous. “You shouldn’t talk so,” Azinza hissed. “She hears things.”
It felt like something cold had clutched the back of Lucinda’s neck. “Animal? What do you mean?”
“That… thing,” Sarah said, ignoring Azinza’s warning shake of the head. The usually cheerful cook folded her arms across her bosom. “No, I won’t be quiet. I am a Christian woman, whatever has happened to me. She talks to that creature as if it were her own pet, and what is godly in that? Sits and talks, and I swear that it listens.”
Pema laid a small hand on the German cook’s broad arm. “Please, Miss Sarah. Do not say any more. Azinza is right-it is foolishness to speak ill of-”
“A witch?” Sarah scowled. “There, I said it. Don’t these children have a right to know? She talks with a black squirrel and it chatters back at her, for all to see! And only our good Lord knows what she has done to Mr. Gideon to make him so foolish, so… so… ”
Even as Sarah suddenly, startlingly began to weep, Lucinda ran out of the kitchen in terror.
Tyler was right! Lucinda could hardly breathe. A witch! Mrs. Needle really was a witch!
She ran out into the yard, disoriented in the dark after the lights of the kitchen. She was sickened to think of Tyler out there alone, being watched by who knew what. She stumbled toward the middle of the open space, wishing the moon would hurry out from behind the clouds. She thought she saw the bulk of the silo now, but something was moving, something that caught the faintest sheen of moonlight. Tyler? She wanted to call out but didn’t know who might hear. The farm, which only a short while before had seemed strange but mostly safe, now seemed to be a nest of fearsome strangers.
If that was Tyler, he was moving away from the farmhouse-not toward the silo, but out toward the pastures and the reptile barn. Perhaps he had already tried the silo and now meant to explore some other parts of the farm. He didn’t know how much danger he was in! She felt like a fool. Her brother had been right, she had been wrong. She had wanted everything to be okay, just like she always did, and she had kept her eyes closed to the things that seemed to suggest otherwise.
A shudder went through her at the memory of Mrs. Needle’s cold, bright eyes, the woman’s pale hand on hers. When had that been? She remembered drinking tea with her, but not being touched-Mrs. Needle hardly ever touched anyone, even her own son. But now the memory of that cool white hand lying across her own seemed as strong and painful as a memory of being burned.
The dark figure ahead of her was moving faster than she had thought. If it was Tyler, he was running. Had something happened to him? In any case, she could not simply let him roam the farm property without being warned. Too many of the farm folk were out tonight, and he needed to hear what Sarah and the others had said about Mrs. Needle.
Something came to her-a noise? No, it was a feeling, a distinct sadness floating into her thoughts like the wail of a ghost, raising the hair on the back of her neck.
Lost.
Gone.
Lost.
The feeling swept over Lucinda and made her stop where she was, quivering, as though a freezing wind had struck her. It was like a voice in her head, a voice without words that still spoke clearly of terrible grief and an equally terrible, deeply buried anger. Lucinda felt as though she couldn’t hold so much sadness inside her-that she would burst like a balloon that had been inflated too far.
Then the feeling was gone, although a sensation of powerful unhappiness lingered for several moments after. Lucinda’s cheeks felt cold. She touched them with her fingers and found that they were wet with tears.
What was going on here? Was it the ghost she’d seen in the mirror? What else could fill her with such a sensation of misery? Was the whole farm haunted?
While Lucinda had been distracted the dark shape, moving with surprising speed, had almost disappeared from her sight. She pushed herself away from the sheltering darkness of the buildings nearest the house and out into the clouded moonlight, one shadow following another.
Whatever or whoever she had been trailing was long gone, and Lucinda was stumbling through a dark wood at the far end of the pasturelands, just at the base of the hills that marked the edge of the property. The moonlight seemed to have weakened, and she had turned around so many times in the shadow-spotted trees that she wasn’t even quite sure which direction the house was in. She was crying a little despite herself, frustrated and frightened, and was just about to sit down and wait until people came i
n the morning to find her when she saw a light a short way up the hill.
Was it Tyler with his flashlight? No, it wasn’t a flashlight at all, but the uneven, flickering light of a fire. It must be the herders-Kiwa, Jeg, and Hoka-who liked to sit beside their campfire late into the night, singing mournful, deep-throated songs that seemed to vibrate like plucked strings. Still, even in the dark she didn’t think she could have stumbled that far out of her way. Also, although she could now hear a single gruff voice raised in song, it didn’t sound anything like the music of the Three Amigos.
Lucinda moved closer, worry and hope fighting each other inside her chest. She could see the fire moving and sparking in the gentle night breeze in a clearing just ahead, but there was no sign of the singer. She paused at the edge of the clearing, alarmed by the strangeness of the hoarse yet plaintive song, like the howling of some lonely animal set to slow, rhythmic music.
Something was lying on the ground just at her feet. She bent and picked it up. A boot, small as a child’s shoe, still warm from the leg and foot that had been in it. As if in a dream, she reached her hand into it, then yanked it out, startled. It was stuffed with shredded paper, which rustled beneath her fingers.
Something squeezed her arms against her sides with the strength of a giant snake. A huge hand folded over her mouth.
Lucinda screamed but no sound came out except a muffled murmur. She was lifted clean off the ground, feet kicking. Her heels beat against the legs of her captor, but seemed to make no more impression than kicking the trunk of an oak tree.
“Sssshh,” a voice whispered in her ear, the hot breath making her squirm in terror. “He will hear you. He has little enough freedom-do not take this from him.”
Then she recognized the voice. She was still frightened, but at least she knew who held her.
“I’m going to put you down,” Ragnar whispered. “Do not run-it will startle him, which might be dangerous. Do not speak, either. He will be off soon, to look to the fences.”
