The Man in Black stood himself up and for the third time, surveyed the room. There was nothing left except for a sound. A creaking. A groaning. A shrill, metal pulling on metal sound. But there was nothing in the room. He looked up. He dove towards the saloon doors just as the wrought iron chandelier hit the floor with a crash. The dust barely had time to settle before the chandelier, like everything else, was gone.
Horrified, the Man in Black thrust himself with so much force through the saloon doors that he flew past his horse and landed in the middle of Main Street. He lay there in the mud and watched as the Abandon All Hope Saloon, the entire building, disappeared, leaving a giant gaping hole deep in the heart of Fears Corner.
A bolt of lightning, a crash of thunder, and the rain just stopped. A cold stillness, a blast of wind, and the hail began to fall. The ice balls, each a different size, from tiny to huge, pelted everything else left in town. They coldly tore through wood and window. The never ever used jail was obliterated when a giant hailstone dropped square on it.
The Man in Black turned away from the blast of destruction. He tucked himself into a tight little ball right there in the middle of town and waited for the giant hail to fall on him. Then just like the rain, the hailstorm stopped. He dared not move.
With his arms around his head, the Man in Black couldn’t hear a thing. But with his body so close to the ground, he could feel a low rumble. He opened his eyes and there it was, two or three miles away, the biggest twister he had ever seen. It was coming fast, and the wind that roared up was proof of it.
His horse, once a fearless demon, was terrified and in a panic. He chomped at his bit and pulled at the reins that were still tied to the hitching post. He was tugging hard enough to almost pull the posts themselves right up and out of the ground.
The Man in Black could see his only means of escape about to escape on its own. Against the brutal force of the wind, he dragged himself up and began to fight his way to the horse. The tornado was bearing down on the town and the wind was getting vindictive. In its relentlessness it picked up the Man in Black and threw him towards his own horse.
He landed with a glancing blow under the hitching post. He reached up and grabbed the reins. Pulling them down, he used the slack to untie the horse. Free, the horse whinnied and reared up, pulling the Man in Black up into the air. As he flew over the horse, out of the corner of his eye, he could see his last hope of fleeing this place vanish.
The wind violently deposited him several feet away. He rolled along Main Street never letting go of the reins of his once present companion. Miraculously, the Man in Black rolled up and onto his feet and in a defiant gesture he raised his fist into the air. He brandished the reins in his clutched hand to the sky like a trophy.
“You can take everything away,” he screamed at the massive windstorm. “But I will not forget!”
The reins disappeared along with his hat, guns, holsters, belt and boots. He was left standing in only his black pants, black shirt and bare feet.
“I will not forget!” he screamed as the most devastating tornado ever seen in these parts arrived in Fears Corner.
Building after building was simply blown apart. Annihilated in the tornado’s wake. It was traveling down Main Street and heading right at the Man in Black. He could see the end of the street. If he could just make it to the edge of town. He was running, but not fast enough.
The twister was on the heels of the Man in Black when a door appeared at the end of the street. He threw his full weight against it, forcing the door open. The Man in Black stumbled inside and it slammed shut.
The door stood alone against the oncoming onslaught. Its frame cracked, but held together. Its hinges squealed, but did not give. The doorknob, in the shape of a silver cowboy hat, rattled but did not turn.
The door wisely vanished before it could be destroyed.
2.
Mathias Bootmaker
The Man in Black found himself standing in a circular hallway full of doors. The all white walls and the all white doors left no room for darkness. In this shadowless place it was clear to see that he was not the cold and callous Man in Black. He had the same eyes, the same face, but the features were calmer, gentler.
This was the face of a young man. A very confused young man.
“Mathias,” a woman’s voice whispered throughout the hall.
The young man in black was surprised by the disembodied voice.
“Mathias,” she repeated, “find the doors.”
He turned to the door closest to him. It was just like all the others, a simple white door in a simple white frame, but the doorknob was not like all the others. It was in the shape of a star. The knob on the door next to it was in the shape of a small tree. The one next to that was in the shape of a ribboned gift box. Every door was the same, but each knob was different.
Mathias reached for the star, grabbed it and turned the sparkling knob. The door was locked. Mathias reached for the small tree. Fruitless. He reached for the ribboned gift box. It would not open. He began trying door after door, knob after knob. The ship. The clown’s head. The question mark. None held the answer.
The young man was now running down the circular hall frantically searching for something familiar. A knob he might recognize. But there were so many. With each turn of the hall, an entirely new set of doors presented themselves. He passed hundreds of doors, and no matter which one he tried he could not gain entrance.
Mathias made one last turn and stopped. The circular hallway had come to its end.
Before him stood a set of double doors. The doors were like all the other simple doors in simple frames. Except these doors were red and the knobs were sparkling gold, held in place by a set of crystal talons. The talons turned. All on their own. The lock clicked. The doors opened and Mathias stepped inside.
He found himself in the large entry hall of a grand house. Exotic artifacts, trinkets and mementos lined the walls. This was the home of a traveler and adventurer. But none of this mattered to the young man. The only thing that mattered was the other door, on the opposite side of the room. He ran to it.
Like the doors that granted him entrance to this palace, the door that led to the outside of the house was also red. But like the others in the circular hall, this door was locked.
Through the small windows that were set on either side of the door frame, Mathias could see three children playing in a sandbox that was set in the front yard of the house. He knew these children. They had led the battle against him in Fears Corner. He was about to knock on the door, hoping that the children would forgive him and set him free when he heard the giggle of a small child.
The giggling was coming from inside the house. It was coming from somewhere upstairs.
Mathias took the steps of the circular staircase two at a time. He raced his way up the stairs passing landing after landing. Room after room. They all passed his view in a blur until he reached the top and found himself staring at yet another door.
This door was made of an old heavy wood. Dark metal bands held the individual planks together. The frame was made of stone. At the center of the door, there was a square silver slab embellished with decoration. The head of a dragon, carved in crystal, seemed to be pushing its way out of the slab. Its eyes were staring at Mathias. It was waiting.
Mathias reached for the knob, but there wasn’t one. He thought for a moment. Then he knocked. Nothing. He knocked louder. Still nothing.
All the frustration from all that Mathias had endured rose up inside of him. He began pounding on the door with his fists. If this was another trick, another trap, then he wanted to be done with it. He pounded on the door until the house started pounding back.
The noise was deafening. Mathias tried his best to cover his ears, but the sound was even pounding in his mind. Everything in the house shook with each impact. Cracks began to appear in the walls. Fissures opened up in the floors and ceilings, and dust began to rain down everywhere.
Mathias ru
shed down the flight of stairs. Landing after landing brought fresh disasters. Artifacts, trinkets and mementos fell from walls and shelves and crashed to the floors. Windows were exploding into cascading shards of glass. The house was being torn apart.
He reached the bottom of the stairs. He made it to the large entry hall as the circular staircase collapsed. Every landing, top to bottom, came down with it. The impact of the crash blasted Mathias out through the red double doors and back into the hall. They slammed shut behind him.
He could still hear the sounds of chaos behind those doors, and he could see clouds of debris beginning to seep out of the spaces in the frame. Mathias ran from those double doors as fast as he could. He ran back through the circular hall until he couldn’t hear a thing. Convinced he was safe, he stopped to catch his breath. His sense of safety was short lived.
He could hear a sound coming towards him. Something was following after him.
From around the turn came a small white mouse. It stopped directly in front of the young man. Like Mathias, it was exhausted and trying to catch its breath. The little mouse looked up and smiled. He shook his tiny body violently. The creature wasn’t white at all, he was covered in dust from the destruction of the house. This newly revealed mouse sparkled.
This mouse was made entirely of golden sand.
Satisfied with his appearance, the mouse stood up tall, and with a flourish, bowed deeply before Mathias. As he rose, he winked at the young man. The mouse then raised his little arms until they were level with his chest. He then pushed up onto the toes of his tiny right foot and began to spin.
As Mathias watched, the little performer began to pick up speed until he was nothing but a shimmering blur. That blur burst into hundreds of teeny grains of sparkling golden sand.
Those little sparks of light flew everywhere. They bounced off of everything. They filled the hall of doors with a warm, amber light. Then they all froze in the air. For a second, not one of those tiny stars moved. Then like little rockets, they each found a target. Each one picked a door and rocketed itself into every keyhole under every doorknob.
For a moment there was nothing. Then the doorknobs began to rattle. Cascades of golden sand began pouring through the keyholes and onto the floor of the hall of doors. The sand swirled around the young man’s bare feet. Mathias tried stepping around it, but the sand seemed to be grabbing at him.
The hall, like the house before it and the town before that, began to rumble. He had encountered many frightening moments in this story, but nothing was as terrifying as the thing he saw before him. A giant wave of sand was rolling down the hall of doors right towards Mathias.
The sand at his feet formed into two gnarly hands that wrapped themselves around his ankles. The closed grainy fists held him in place. The tornado was unlucky. It missed its mark. The wave of sand would fare better. It slammed into the young man head on and consumed him.
Mathias woke up. In his bed. In his room. In his home.
It wasn’t the house that was pounding back at him. It was his heart. It wasn’t the wave of sand that had choked off his air. It was the twist of the red bed linens that were wrapped around his body. He had had another nightmare. Another nightmare, in a long line of nightmares that had stretched on for countless nights. Each one was the same, and each time Mathias felt a little more of himself slipping away.
Mathias slowly pulled himself up and sat at the edge of the large bed. The room was dark. Just a hint of moonlight sneaked in through a tall open window at the far end of the room. He could hear rain falling from the night sky and he could feel the dampness in the air.
His black bed clothes were not enough against the chill. He stood up, slid his feet into his black bed slippers and pulled his black robe from one of the four ornately carved mahogany bedposts and put it on. He cinched it tight around his waist, and the chill began to fade.
Mathias walked the few steps to his night table. Each footfall felt labored. His body was heavy from the effects of all the nightmares. He passed his hand over a thick white candle that was resting on a tall crystal candlestick. The wick lit with a spark and burned. As far as he knew, this little bit of magic was all he had left.
Mathias reached for the crystal pitcher on his night table. He grabbed it by the handle, which was in the form of a dapper chimpanzee at rest against the pitcher itself. His other hand reached for a crystal goblet in the form of a dragon in full flight. Its talons held the base. Its up stretched wings formed the cradle into which Mathias poured cool, clear water. He placed the pitcher down on the night table and took a long, deep drink.
He stopped when he caught his reflection in the mirror above his night table. He ran his fingers through his long dark hair. He was a young man, but there was age in his deep blue eyes. An age that comes upon a person when they’ve lost the better part of themselves. Mathias didn’t know what part of himself he had lost. He didn’t know where he might have left it, or to whom he might have given it.
Maybe someone just took it from him.
He didn’t know because he couldn’t remember. He had forgotten a great many things. He hadn’t seen any of his friends. He had forgotten who they were. He hadn’t been to any of his favorite places. He had forgotten where they were. Mathias was afraid that if he didn’t remember, and remember soon, he would simply disappear.
Mathias could see the reflection of the curtains blowing in the tall open window. For a moment, he thought he saw the shape of a woman forming in the flowing fabric. He took another drink as he walked to the window.
Since the nightmares began, Mathias had been spending all his daylight hours staring out that window. He looked out at the green hills that formed the lush valley in which his house stood. He looked up at the white clouds and blue skies that formed the canopy above the valley. But he was truly trying to look beyond this view.
He was searching for something he couldn’t find because he had forgotten what it was he was looking for.
He did, however, know two very important things. Deep down inside, he knew that he was a good man with a good heart. That gave him hope. At the center of his heart, he kept the only other thing he was sure of and the one thing no one could ever take from him. His name. His name was Mathias Bootmaker and for some reason, unbeknownst to him, that gave him strength.
A good name, he thought, keeps its luster in the dark.
Beyond the hills of the valley, he could see the morning star approaching. But it was still dark enough that he could see all the stars in the heavens. This symphony of starlights and distant worlds and far off moons had always brought him peace after his nightmares. But this time, something was not quite right.
There were starlights everywhere, but there was rain. There was rain, but there wasn’t a single cloud in the night sky. Each star, world, and moon was clearly visible and yet the night sky wept without cause.
Mathias looked down to the ground below his bedroom window, which was at the highest point of his grand home. The rain was causing a pool of water to form, and he could see the starlight above beginning to reflect off its surface. As Mathias continued to watch, the pool continued to grow and the starlights inside of it began to swirl.
There was a flash of bright white light and Mathias’ head began to spin. Faces. Voices. Sounds. Moments and places, all too fast to understand, engulfed his mind.
Losing his balance, he stumbled back from the window. His mind in mayhem, he reached out for his bed. It seemed to be pulling farther and farther away. He grabbed the closest bedpost and fell back upon it. Darkness swallowed his consciousness.
The body of Mathias Bootmaker lay on the bed, quite still, for only a moment, and then it was gone. The impression of his body, left on the bed sheets, faded quickly as well.
The crystal goblet, with what was left of the water, dropped over the edge of the bed. The dragon seemed to fly as the goblet glided to the floor. Landing gently, it began to roll across the room and as it passed over the lip of its cradle, the coo
l, clear water was transformed into sparkling golden grains of sand.
3.
Sandbox Harbor
At first, there was nothing but black. Then, there was a clear rich blue. Full white clouds appeared, blown into view by a warm gentle breeze. Birds danced in the sky, silhouetted by the glowing presence of the sun. Other worlds, moons and stars faded into view. Some were very close. Others were so far away they were barely visible.
The sound of the air moving through the leaves of a tree surrounded Mathias’ mind. The picture before him began to sway. The rhythm was soothing and the undulations he now felt beneath him made him sit up.
What he thought was the mahogany bed post was actually the branch of an oak tree. He was no longer in his bed. Or his room. Or anywhere near his house. He was now perched, rather precariously, atop a very large oak tree with no clear idea of how he had gotten there. Any fear of falling was instantly eliminated by the magnificence of the view before him.
He was overlooking a town square full of life within a busy harbor community that was bustling with lively music and festivities. Houses and shops stretched out beyond this central point, but today that part of the town was mostly vacant.
As was the one and only road in or out of it.
Further away, the road entered a beautiful forest that surrounded this place. At this end, the road linked to the square and that’s where most, if not all, of the citizens were gathered.
At the center of the square was a large grand fountain. There were people everywhere around it, and yet, the crowds moved with ease and a sense of goodwill.
Colorful banners and flags hung from all manner of places. The people themselves were dressed in different types of clothing and in many cases elaborate costumes. No face appeared to be the same. No face was the same color. Children made their way around adults who in turn made way for the elders. All were celebrating.
It Is Said (Mathias Bootmaker and the Keepers of the Sandbox) Page 2