“No. I mean, I’d like to. I’d give anything to see the house again, what’s left of it. But I don’t know how to get there.”
“But Eastbrook is a stop on this line. Just one before Dyerville. That is where you’re going, isn’t it? Dyerville?”
“Eastbrook is near Dyerville?” How had he not known this? He supposed that made sense; it was just that the world seemed so much bigger back then. A town over was a universe away.
“Ten miles or so, I guess. You could get off at Eastbrook, and then it’s only a short ride to where you have to go. Won’t take much time out of your day. Not if you can beat the majority of the snow.”
Smiling, Vince sat up straight. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll do that.” And why not? It was only Tuesday, and the funeral wasn’t until Saturday. He had plenty of time. It would just be a short detour.
“Something to tell your father before you reconnect with him, right? I bet he’d like to hear about the house he so cared for. It was his art, you know; his story. Yours too. Maybe take a picture of that foundation with your initials.”
“I wish I could go back there and lift up that foundation and carry it on my back; I don’t care how heavy it is.”
Eric stared at Vince. The artist’s mouth stood agape. He dived across the aisle and hugged Vince very tightly. When he finally let go, he grabbed his pad and feverishly began to draw. “I can finish it!” he yelled. “Thank you, Vince! I can finish it now!”
As Eric got to work, Vince slid back across his seat and leaned his head against the glass. His reflection was gone, and outside, the snow began to come down even harder. It made the world look beautiful. Stunning and peaceful. Yes, he would return to his home today. He couldn’t explain why exactly. It just felt like something he had to do. It wouldn’t be long now. Another few stops.
As Eric feverishly penciled away, Vince turned from the window, reached into his backpack, and again opened his grandfather’s book
The Gnome
Vincent had been in the giant’s cave for over five months. He had searched the dozen rooms hundreds of times, rarely ever stumbling through the same door twice. Not once had he ever come across a snake. This, however, also meant the gnome had not found what he was looking for either. For both of them, there was still a chance for success, however slim.
One morning Vincent entered a room that was empty except for a large painting hanging on the far wall in an elaborate gold frame—not that such art mattered to him at this point in his life. Most important, there was no snake to be seen, no sign whatsoever of the gnome. Another dead end.
As he turned to leave, disappointed yet again, he heard a voice.
“Congratulations on the crab and ladybug. You’re almost there. Don’t give up now,” the sad and distant voice said. “At least you have something to live for.”
Vincent’s eyes scanned the room, looking for where the gnome might be hiding, playing his games, waiting to strike. “Where are you?”
“Up here.”
Vincent backed against the wall, hands balled into fists. He looked around the room but could see no one. Was this not the gnome? “Show yourself,” he said, in as brave a voice he could muster.
“You can’t see me? Yes, of course. I’m practically invisible, aren’t I? Even with nobody else in the room I’m just nothing but background. A pitiful existence. Ah, well. Have a look in the tower window, why don’t you, Vincent?”
The voice was coming from the painting. Hesitantly Vincent approached the canvas, an oil painting of a tower, a tower that, surrounded by clouds, stretched into the heavens; at the top was a sole window, and sure enough, inside this window was the silhouette of a person.
“Who are you?” Vincent asked, his fingers brushing the artwork.
“A man without a face. The failed creation of a master.” The voice groaned. “He painted me a millennium ago, was unhappy with the result, and thus stuck me on this wall ever since, to be viewed by no one. It is quite lonely, as you can imagine. One could go crazy. The thoughts that begin to form . . .” He paused. “I look out this window, all the way down, all the way . . . Would it hurt? I’m up so very high.”
“How’d you know my name? How’d you know about the crab and the ladybug?”
The silhouette sighed. “From my tower I can see all that goes on in this cave, my dear boy. It is all I have, my view. But oh, what a view it is. Even if it taunts me in how unattainable it all is. I suppose all the best things are practically unattainable.”
“You can really see everything from up there? The entire cave? All the rooms? Even as they change?” This gave Vincent an idea. “Have you seen a gnome? A gnome with a snake?”
“Ah, yes, the gnome. He is a maniacal pest. Unpredictable. But from up here, I suppose he is an amusing sort. Keeps my attention. What else do I have? I quite enjoy his antics from time to time. As long as I don’t ever encounter him again. Once was enough. I thought he was going to tear a hole right through me. Or worse, carry me off with him. Luckily that mirror of his began to glow; he doesn’t know how to control it, you know, not really.”
“Please, can you tell me where I may find him?”
“Ah, yes, yes, yes. You need to find him, don’t you? Well, I’m sorry. I can’t help you there. Even if I do know, I can’t tell you where he is. I can’t tell you any such thing. Nope. Not possible.”
“But why not?”
“I’m not allowed. You see, the witch’s powers are far more reaching than you would like to believe. Her knowledge of this land goes very far back, farther even than mine does. She is very much aware of my presence along with my abilities, and when she decided to spite the giant and hide those things in this cave, she placed a spell on me, tying my tongue if I ever wished to disclose their whereabouts. Watch, I will now attempt to tell you where the gnome is.” The silhouette began to speak, but all that came out were peculiar moans and a mangling of syllables. Gibberish.
“Oh, I see.” Vincent’s disappointment was palpable.
The man in the tower groaned. “Well, don’t despair. It’s not like you’ve been locked up here for thousands of years. That’s not the case, is it? Have you any idea what something like this does to one’s mind? You may have a chain shackled to your leg, but at least you’re not stuck in a tiny room for all eternity. I can hardly even stretch out in here. And it’s quite chilly.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to think only of myself.”
“Of course you don’t. Of course you don’t. And of course things aren’t much easier from your position. Listen, Vincent. I suppose I can help you in a different way. I can tell you about the watch.”
“A watch?”
“Oh, yes. It is tied quite closely to the gnome; it used to tick with the beat of his heart. He dismantled it himself, however. But as much as he would like to, he could never destroy it. It sits in pieces in one of these very rooms. Now, if you can manage to put it together again, you will find it to be a terrific tracking device of sorts. When it is working properly, wherever the minute hand rests, upon whichever number, that is in which room you will find the gnome and his snake, which you so desperately covet. For example, this is the fifth room you are currently in. The count begins with the red door and, quite appropriately, runs clockwise—twelve rooms in all.”
“And you can tell me where I can find this watch?”
“Well, what’s left of it, yes, of course. The witch’s curse doesn’t cover everything. There are always loopholes. To everything. Let me have a look.” There was a brief silence. “Yes. Yes, I see it now. If you hurry, before the gnome uses his mirror yet again, you will find the watch in the tenth room.”
“Thank you,” Vincent cried. “Thank you so much.”
“I pray you succeed. It would be nice to see somebody get what he wants around here. I will be watching with great anticipation.” His sad, wistful voice began to drift. “It truly is a wonderful view, seeing the world this way. Just wonderful. But oh, so far. So very, very far . . .”
Vincent thanked the man in the tower once more but received no response. After turning around, he hurried out the room and crossed the circle of doors to the door located at the ten o’clock position before everything changed.
He was in time. Within these heretofore-unseen four walls, he found the watch, as he had been told he would. Dauntingly, it lay in twinkling pieces, scattered about the room as if it had exploded at some point. He had never seen a bigger mess.
Without another wasted second, Vincent fell to his knees and set to work. And yet he had no idea what he was doing or where to even begin. What piece to grab first, and what to follow? It was lunacy. There was the regulator and the winding click, the barrel arbor and the barrel drum, pinions, jewels, weights and coils; there were springs and wheels and screws; there were bridges and balances and studs—not that Vincent could tell one from the other. Every time he thought he was getting somewhere a piece wouldn’t fit or something would be left out or the gears wouldn’t budge. It was so confounding he wanted to throw it against the wall, break it into even more pieces, and just continue to try his luck by randomly opening doors, even if it took him the rest of his life.
But however frustrated he became, he didn’t give in to such desperate whims. Without rest, fiercely determined, he kept at it. And in doing so, he eventually found the process to be more and more interesting. He began to see how the pieces fitted, how precisely they worked together, the intricate beauty of the gears, of the design. The craftsmanship was astounding. Every bit of construction felt exactly right. This watch in its own right was a work of art.
In the end the task took him almost a month to complete. He couldn’t risk leaving the room and not finding it again and so was forced to subsist on what little water and bugs and crumbs he could find collected in the corners. But finally he was down to the very last piece.
With a trembling hand, he locked the copper cover in place and, unable to look, brought the watch to his ear.
Tick, tick, tick. “It’s working. It’s working!” he yelled as he jumped to his feet. He was beaming with pride, tears welling in his eyes, as all the frustration escaped from his body. But there was no time to celebrate. There was more work to be done.
Quickly he turned the watch over. The minute hand went around once, then twice, then so quickly that the revolutions couldn’t be counted. Finally it fell still, settling on a number. And that number was nine. The gnome was right next door.
Vincent didn’t have a plan. It had never occurred to him that he would actually get to this point. He left the room with the watch and walked to door nine, heart pounding, without a clue to how he would come away with the snake. But what he was absolutely sure of was that he had spent far too long in this cave. It was time for him to leave, and somehow, he would find a way.
With that, he pushed the door open.
Inside, along with the creak of the age-old door’s rusted hinges, something squealed, as if frightened by the torchlight suddenly invading the room. Grunting, a small blur scrambled across the floor, dived behind a group of large boulders, and landed with a grunt. Vincent watched as a two-foot snake slithered to the very same spot and disappeared inside a crack.
Bubbling rivers of oil flowed through the room, from one wall to another. The heat emanating from these dark rivers was tremendous. Sweat dripped off Vincent’s brow like rain in a thunderstorm. A drop from a bursting oil bubble landed on his clothes and burned straight through. He didn’t know what to do or what to say. He stood there dumbfounded.
Eventually, a small hand appeared over one of the rocks. It had long, uneven nails that scratched away at the surface—a chilling sound. Its knuckles were cut and bleeding, a finger or two were broken, bent in grotesque positions, bones practically popping through the yellowed skin. The hand jerked back, and soon something reflective inched out from behind the rocks in its place: the magic mirror. The gnome was watching Vincent through it.
Suddenly the ground rumbled and shifted, and Vincent nearly toppled over into the flowing oil. He fell on his back, rolled toward the stream, and stopped just short of a quick death. It was moments before he allowed himself to even breathe again, let alone stand up.
Once the room settled, a maniacal laugh erupted, and the mirror, scratching along the ground, was pulled back behind the boulder.
“Just a boy. Nothing but a boy, you are. A weak, scared boy.”
To Vincent, the voice sounded demented, crazed. The three fragmented sentences almost seemed as if they had spilled from three separate tongues. One voice was deep, another high-pitched, while the third was almost growled, early animalistic in tone. The words were punctuated with heavy and strained breaths, while some syllables were cut short, and others stretched. All this created an odd and disturbing song. He wondered if this was what happened when one pursued something for so very long without ever succeeding. If I fail here, Vincent thought, is this my fate?
“Boy come for my prize. Can’t have prize. No, no, no. My destiny.”
“I don’t want your prize,” Vincent said. “I’ve come for the snake.”
“Never!” The gnome hissed as if attacked by such a statement. “Out, before I have you for dinner!”
A rock flew at Vincent and just missed his head. It bounced off the wall and rolled back to his feet. With his eyes locked on where the gnome hid, he bent down and picked it up. It was heavy in his hand, the only weapon he had.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Vincent said.
The gnome could only laugh at this. “But I want to hurt you. I want to hurt you so bad.”
The mirror came out again, and this time Vincent finally got a look at the gnome through it. He was a ghastly creature, something like a diseased goblin, his features perfectly befitting his cracked voice. He looked frail, wasted away as if consumed by his quest—nothing but a yellowed, gaunt face with wild eyes. He sees things differently. His beard was discolored and haggard, long enough to trip over, and insects crawled throughout it. He was filthy from head to toe, and indeed some toes peeked through the holes in his ragged boots. His hat was in shambles; it too laden with several holes, which, Vincent noticed, the snake slinked in and out of. How long has he been down here?
The gnome’s feral eyes met Vincent’s. He hissed, revealing rotten teeth, and threw another rock in response.
Vincent darted out of the way, and the rock landed behind him, disappearing into the oil that flowed from wall to wall like a serpent. “There’s nothing behind the red door,” he said. “I’ve opened it. The room is empty. Your quest has been in vain. You can give up.”
“Lies,” the gnome cried. “Prize is behind door. Everything you dream is behind door. Life eternal is behind door.”
Eternal life? The power to fulfill dreams? Vincent wondered if this was true. Was there a way to break the witch’s curse behind that door? A way to reunite him with his mother?
From where the gnome hid, something began to glow. “Must go. Must go now.”
It was the mirror. It was beginning to transport him to another room, maybe this time to the exact room the gnome wanted to be in. In a moment he would be gone, along with the snake. There was no time to waste. Vincent ran to the light. As the glow intensified, he jumped behind the boulder, throwing the rock in midair, but the room was so bright by now he couldn’t track its trajectory; it was lost in a blinding light.
However, there was the sound. With great force, the rock somehow connected with the mirror and shattered it into hundreds of pieces. It was music, a chimed symphony.
The gnome shrieked, a wail of incredible despair, one that was to haunt Vincent for years to come. With a damaged hand, the sobbing gnome picked up a large shard of glass and came charging at Vincent. His gait was awkward, as if one leg were shorter than the other, but this did not hinder his speed in the slightest. In his mad dash, his mouth hung open, drool dripping from an abnormally long and black tongue. He gripped the glass so tightly blood dripped from his palm, although he showed n
o pain. When he was only feet away, he jumped at Vincent, jumped higher than one would have believed possible. His arm was arched far back, and when he was close enough to his prey, he brought it flying forward to slash Vincent’s face with the jagged shard. And that was how Vincent came to bear the scar he was to carry for the rest of his life.
The two of them crashed to the ground, the gnome on top, continuing to slash away. Defensively, Vincent brought his arms to his face, only to have them hacked and bloodied. The gnome was stronger than he appeared, and through it all he let loose an ungodly wail. Drooling, seething, he writhed and squirmed, his hat falling by his side.
The snake was only feet away from Vincent now. He could almost reach it, his sure path to freedom. With all his strength, he swiped at the gnome, knocking him aside, and in a single motion, Vincent rolled over and scooped up the hat with the snake still inside.
“Give snake back!” the gnome yelled from his hands and knees. “Broke mirror. Prize lost. Give . . . snake . . . back!”
“I can’t,” Vincent said, one hand clutching his throbbing cheek, dark blood gushing from between his fingers. “I’m sorry.”
“Kill you! Carve out eyes! Eat them! Eat them!”
The room quaked yet again, the ground shifting violently beneath their feet. Vincent watched as the gnome lost his balance, teetering on the edge of the flowing oil. His body wobbled, his arms flailed, and still, he kept his eyes on his quarry. “Kill you! Kill you! Eat you up!” He raised the bloody shard of glass high over his head, prepared to strike a fatal blow.
But there was another tremor, this one more powerful than all the rest, and the earth split right beneath the gnome’s feet. The crack grew drastically wide in seconds, sending him reeling backward.
“Watch out!” Vincent yelled, but it was too late.
The gnome had fallen into the boiling river. He didn’t even have a chance to scream as he slowly sank and burned. It wasn’t long before there wasn’t a trace of him left.
Vincent looked away, clutching the hat close to his chest.
The Dyerville Tales Page 8