by Glen Huser
Oren fully expected to find Jimmy Joe lying there minus a foot. But when they found him, it looked like a root tangle had wrapped itself around one of his ankles. That’s what had caused him to trip.
The old lady carefully unwrapped the root as Jimmy Joe regained consciousness, crying out, “My foot! I want my foot!”
“You’ve got both your feet,” the old woman said. “But this one is badly sprained. You both should know better than to be running through the swamp at night.”
“But the skeleton — ” Jimmy Joe sputtered.
“Look!” Oren pointed to a light flickering through branches some distance away.
The old woman clucked her tongue.
“Swamp gas,” she said. “You can see that most nights. Here, lean on me. We’ll get you back to my place and put a splint on that ankle.”
The odd thing was, that same night the hundred-year-old foot disappeared from the medical lab where it was being studied. And no one ever saw it again. When Jimmy Joe’s foot was strong enough to walk on, he went with his daddy to work, and he checked the closet where he had found the skeleton.
And do you know what he found?
Nothing.
I guess that skeleton, once it had both of its feet, decided it was time to take up residence somewhere else. Some place where no one would be making off with any of its bones.
As Carolina Giddle finished her story, Mr. and Mrs. Fergus could be heard at the apartment door.
“Everything okay?” Mr. Fergus looked suspiciously at the boys in their pajamas on the couch.
“Hunky dory,” Carolina Giddle said. She placed Chiquita’s cage carefully in her bag beside the empty bone-rattler container.
“Candles?” Mrs. Fergus eyed the sputtering tea lights on the end table.
Dwight stretched and yawned. “The lights went out in the living room,” he said.
“A fuse,” Dwayne added.
As the two headed down the hall to their bedroom, Dwight lifted his hand in a backward wave.
“G’night.” Dwayne picked at a piece of bone rattler stuck to his pajama top and popped it into his mouth. “Swamp gas,” he mumbled, the words slipping past the peppermint taste on his tongue.
“Swamp gas?” Mr. Fergus scratched his head. Mrs. Fergus stared after the retreating boys as if she had never quite seen them before.
Later, Carolina Giddle slipped into the sunroom that rested like a glassy cage against the edge of the Blatchford Arms. There was only a sliver of a moon, so very little light shone in. She turned on just one of the table lamps. She liked the near-darkness. The room was a comfortable spot for sipping a cup of something hot before going to bed.
Tenants over the years had donated odd bits of furniture. Carolina Giddle’s favorite was a wing-backed chair the color of hominy. And there was an old phonograph in one corner that she had grown fond of. It had a handle to crank and played the old black records she remembered from when she was a little girl visiting her grandmother. There was a stack of these.
She put one on now. It was scratchy, but the melody came through faintly like the fuzzy moonlight seeping into the room.
In my sweet little Alice blue gown…
“One of my favorites,” whispered a voice.
“Mine, too,” Carolina Giddle whispered back.
THREE
Shadow Killer
It was a mid-afternoon in late November when Carolina Giddle rang the doorbell at the Croop apartment.
“Oh, my!” Mrs. Croop said, eyeing the babysitter’s coat and hat and gloves. “Did you just come from out-of-doors?”
“No.” Carolina Giddle smiled a big smile. “But it’s such a lovely day I thought the children might like to go out for a while. I’ve never known it to be so warm with December just a week away.”
“Yes…yes…” Mrs. Croop was a nervous little woman who only came as high as Carolina Giddle’s chin. She had a habit of repeating herself and fluttering her hands as if she was juggling the extra words. “Outside for a walk. Not too late, is it? The dark, you know. Hubert and Hetty — well, especially Hubert — doesn’t like…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “The dark. Spooks him, the dark! I was like that, too, when I was his age.” She giggled and then clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Say hello to Ms. Giddle, children.”
“Hello, Ms. Giddle.” The children glanced up at the babysitter and then shyly returned their gaze to the checker board.
In a flurry, Mrs. Croop grabbed her wrap from a chair. “I’m late for meeting Papa. Be good for Ms. Giddle.” She fluttered her fingers in a good-bye wave. To Carolina, she said, again in a whisper, “Sylvester and I have a meeting of the Save the Pigeons Society — and we serve the refreshments and do the clean-up after. We shouldn’t be too late but, if we’re not back, see that the children are in bed by nine. Remember to leave the lights on in their rooms, though…you know…it’s what they’re used to.” She eased the door shut as she left the apartment.
“Is it an exciting game?” Carolina Giddle inquired.
“No,” said Hetty. “But our TV is out for fixing.”
“Won’t be back ’til Tuesday,” Hubert added glumly.
“I have an idea.” Carolina Giddle pulled her sweater coat closer around her. It was orange and warm looking, the color of a ripe pumpkin. “Why don’t we go for an outing in the park? It’s still early, and such a lovely afternoon, considering it’s November.”
“I dunno.” Hubert looked suspiciously at the living-room window. “It’ll be getting dark soon.”
“Land’s sake!” Carolina Giddle laughed. “There’s least a couple of hours of good sunlight. We can have a picnic.” She patted her large bag. “I’ve got cocoa in a thermos. And Rumpelstiltskin sandwiches.”
“Rumpelstiltskin sandwiches?”
“My daddy used to make these when I was little. We didn’t know what to call them so I named them.” Carolina Giddle smacked her lips. “They’re made with banana bread and marshmallows and chopped-up mini chocolate bars. You know, the kind that people give out as Halloween treats? I always have a bunch left over.”
“Mommy left us a snack,” Hetty sighed. “Carrot sticks and parsnip hummus.”
Hubert gave a little groan. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
Carolina Giddle was right. It was still sunny as they entered the park. They walked along the trail that followed the shoreline of a small lake in the middle.
When she noticed Hubert looking apprehensively at the patches of darkness in the shaded treed areas, Carolina Giddle began
to sing.
“There’s nothing better than campfire songs when you’re out for a brisk walk. ‘A horse and a flea and three blind mice…’”
So they sang. It took seven songs to get them to the best picnic table. It sat in the sunlight, well away from the shade of evergreens.
By the time they were ready to head home, the sun had begun to go down. It was beginning to get a bit chilly, too. Hetty put on her mitts and hung onto Carolina Giddle’s gloved hand — the one that was not occupied with her going-to-the-park bag. Hubert kept so close to Carolina Giddle’s sweater coat, he might as well have been wearing it himself.
A long shadow from one of the park’s statues stretched across their path. The statue was of a famous musician holding his violin, but to Hubert the shadow looked like a zombie with an ax sticking out of its head. He cringed and closed his eyes as they walked over it.
A little farther on, they came upon another shadow. This one, cast by one of the pylons by the park gate, was gigantic. Hubert, with his eyes closed, strayed from the path, stumbled over a water fountain pedestal and fell into the middle of the dark mass.
At that moment, a jogger ran by. He was accompanied by a dog the size of a bear. Drool dripped from its muzzle. Hubert let out a howl that brought an answering
howl from the dog.
“Land sakes alive!” Carolina Giddle said, handing her bag to Hetty. She helped Hubert to his feet. His teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. He held her hand all the way back to the Blatchford Arms.
“Papa always reads to us before we go to bed,” Hetty said, after dinner and baths. She began hunting through the bookshelf. “There’s Perky the Pigeon and A Pigeon Keeper’s Guide to Carrier Training.”
“Well, now,” Carolina Giddle declared, “I’m a better teller than I am a reader. You just find yourselves the most comfortable spot on that sofa and tuck that afghan blanket around you. I’ll make us all some honey hickory tea.”
Once the children were tucked up with the afghan, Carolina Giddle went around the apartment, turning off lights.
“What are you doing?” Hubert whimpered.
“Too much light is bad for storytelling.” Carolina clicked off everything in the living room except for a small table lamp by the sofa. Then she reached into her going-to-the-park bag and pulled out a plastic container of round candles in tiny tin pans.
“Candlelight is the best.”
She arranged the candles in a large flat ornamental dish Mrs. Croop kept on the coffee table.
In a minute, candles were lit and she was back with mugs of steaming hickory tea for all of them.
“Now, let’s see…” Carolina Giddle took a sip of her tea. Flames from the candles flickered and danced. “A story for a November evening…hmmm. I think you might like hearing about the mountain king and the shadow killer.”
Hubert shivered and pulled the blanket tighter as Carolina Giddle began.
This is the story of a boy I knew a few years back. Jack Scrumble lived with his grandfather up on the side of Cornshuck Mountain. How old are you, Hubert? Seven and a half? And you’re a year older, Hetty? Well, Jack had just turned nine.
He was pretty brave for a nine-year-old. He helped his grandfather rescue sheep that sometimes stumbled down a steep incline at the edge of their pasture. Looking down from that ledge could make you dizzy as a hornet that’s fallen into a mint julep. When his granddad gathered honey from their hives, Jack was right there giving him a hand, never mind he’d been stung twice by honeybees. He learned to milk their cow, Adeline. She was a miserable beast who was known to kick out at you if you didn’t approach her in just the right way. A bruised shin didn’t keep him from doing the milking chore.
But one thing Jack didn’t like was the dark shadows that ranged over Cornshuck Mountain. Once the sun began to sink, it seemed that wherever Jack went he was met by horrible shadows from twisted pine trees and odd-shaped rock outcroppings. The shadows looked as if they might be made by trolls or werewolves, or maybe even dragons.
What Jack didn’t know was that Cornshuck Mountain was ruled by a mountain king who, as mountain kings go, wasn’t all that bad. Except for one habit. He liked to spend time dreaming up scary shadows when he should have been tending to a hundred and one other things that needed doing.
Like what?
Well, a good mountain king makes sure all the mountain streams and waterfalls are working — not plugged up with rocks and dirt and leaves. He’s responsible for painting mountain ash berries that color of orange-red that looks like the heart of a candle flame. He polishes up quartz crystals so they can wink at the moon on a dark night.
Like I said, a multitude of chores.
To tell the truth, the mountain king’s wife was getting fed up with tending to most of these chores herself. Meanwhile, her husband played around, twisting tree branches so they made shadows that looked like hairy mammoths or zombies with three heads.
“Zeb,” she announced one evening, after she had spent the entire day teaching a litter of young mountain wolves how to yodel, “time you quit all that shadow work. I know you come from a long line of fright-masters given to spooking travelers who should know better than to be out on mountain paths at night. But that band of crooks is gone and there are no more moonshiners making bootleg liquor. So there’s really no reason —”
“There’s that boy,” the mountain king said. “You should have seen the expression on his face when he was hurrying home from the sheep corral and I cast that shadow that looked like a Tyrannosaurus rex. Oh, my, I thought I’d die laughing!”
Yes, the mountain king’s wife thought. You’re spending all that time scaring one little boy when you could be lending him a hand. Coyotes needed to be shooed away from the sheep. Their old milk cow could use some guidance finding a good patch of clover.
“What if that boy can’t be frightened anymore?” she said. “Will you give up all of this shadow-play nonsense?”
The mountain king smiled to himself. He knew that he could come up with shapes that would have Jack Scrumble quaking in his boots for years to come.
“Certainly, dear,” he said. “If you can get him to walk a mile along the Cornshuck Trail at sundown. You know that stretch from the sheep pen to his cabin. Get him to walk that without his teeth chattering or without breaking into a run as if a banshee is after him. Then I’ll give up shadow-making.”
“Agreed,” said his wife.
The next day, while the mountain king was spending his time contorting tree branches to look like giant snakes and arranging rocks into hunchbacked horrors, his wife made a visit to the Scrumble farmhouse. She disguised herself as a traveling saleslady selling soaps and cosmetics.
“Don’t have much need for none of them trappings,” Granddad Scrumble told her when she came to the door. “We make our own soap and we still have half a bottle of Grandma’s rose attar perfume. Ain’t been opened since she passed over. But come on inside. We don’t get many visitors up on Cornshuck these days. Jack here’ll put the kettle on and make us all a cup of tea.”
The mountain king’s wife liked to spend time with company herself, so she enjoyed her cup of tea. Granddad told her about the special recipe he had for making soap with beeswax and juniper berries.
“And what do you like to do, Jack?” she asked.
Jack ducked his head and scuffed his shoe on the pine floor.
“Whittlin’,” he admitted.
“He’s mighty good at it, too. Can make a willow whistle that’d charm a mockingbird down from its nest.” Granddad paused and lit his pipe.
“Jack,” he said, “time to go and check on the sheep. The days are gettin’ shorter, remember. You don’t like to be out when it’s gettin’ dark.”
Jack’s complexion went as white as the doily that sat under the teapot on the table.
“Yes, Granddad.” He hurried and got his jacket.
“I’ll be on my way, too,” the mountain king’s wife said. She walked Jack out to where the path to the sheep pen forked away from the main road.
“Oh, my. I almost forgot.” She stopped and unlatched her sample case. “I always leave a little gift whenever I visit prospective customers. So this is for you.” She took out something shiny that looked like a pen, and as she gave it to Jack, she whispered something in his ear.
Jack smiled. “Gee, thanks,” he said and tucked the pen in his pocket.
By the time Jack got to the sheep corral, the mountain king’s wife had joined her husband. He was waiting just back of a pile of boulders that bordered the path. The sun was low in the sky, and the mountain king had arranged the rocks in such a way that they looked like a shadow cast by a huge wolf.
In a few minutes, Jack would be heading the mile back home along this path. The mountain king chuckled at how menacing the shadow looked.
Jack shooed a stray sheep back into the corral. He fed the two orphan lambs and then counted the rest of the flock to make sure none were missing.
Latching the gate, he tested it with a shake to make certain it was secure. He had heard wolves yipping and yodeling earlier in the day. He wanted to be extra sure there was no way they might get into the p
en.
As he turned and started back along the path, he noticed the sun was only a skim of molten gold along the mountain peak. The trail ahead was strewn with shadows.
Jack gulped. An owl hooted. A few feet down the path a huge dark shape loomed across the trail.
It looked like a giant wolf.
In the distance an animal howled.
Aaarrooooo…
Jack closed his eyes. How was he ever going to make it home?
OOoooh-Aarooooo… The animal howled again.
Was it close enough to create that shadow just up ahead?
Then Jack remembered the pen.
He pulled it out and flicked a small switch on the cap. A beam of light streamed out. As Jack approached the wolf shadow, he shone the beam onto it. The shadow skittered and scattered. The wolf’s gaping mouth disappeared when Jack played the light against it. Its ears flew away, and Jack could see the clay of the trail, looking the way it always looked. The wolf’s tail, dissolved by light, turned into clumps of crabgrass.
In a minute, Jack was past the shadow.
He heard another sound. But it didn’t sound like a wolf howling.
In fact, it was a groan from the mountain king, but Jack didn’t know that.
Farther along the trail, more shadows crossed the path. One had wavy tentacles like those of a giant octopus ready to coil around its victim. A huge spider settled in the midst of a crookedy web. Farther on there was a horrible witch-head with a long nose and a pointed chin.
But Jack’s shadow killer — a pen light — slew all of these monsters. He laughed and whistled as he walked that mile back home.
The mountain king and his wife went home, too — to their cave high up on the mountain. As the king settled into his easy chair with his pipe and the latest copy of the Cornshuck Chronicle, his wife cooked their supper of bacon, grits and mountain greens.
“I guess I’ll spend tomorrow making sure all the echo points are still working well along the east canyon,” the king sighed.
