The will of the now hundreds of voices pushed him further on. Further away from the village. They forced this upon him with one single message.
“GET OUT!”
7.
Voices in the Forest
There were no starlights in this place. No moons. No other worlds in the night sky. The darkness in this forest was complete.
Mathias had traveled the only road from town as far as he could. He had stepped off of the path and felt his way through what was now a dense patch of overgrown roots and bare prickly bushes, until he found the pond and the long flat rock.
He had been sitting alone deep in the forest for what seemed like several hours. It took that much time for his eyes to adjust to the thick blanket of endless gloom that surrounded him
He could see now. There was a barely perceptible source of light coming from somewhere, but Mathias couldn’t tell from where. He could just make out the leafless trees that populated this lifeless forest. In the time that he sat, there was not one sound of life. There were no creatures of the night. Mathias was sure there were no creatures of the day either.
The tall trees were an angry tangled mass, and in the darkness, the thin, gnarly branches above seemed like fingers. Fingers on hands waiting to scratch and snatch at the unsuspecting. Trunks seemed to have faces. Eyes. Lips. Teeth. Fog from the cold night mist intertwined itself around these hollow faces adding sorrow to their already tortured features.
This place was not Sandbox Harbor. This place couldn’t possibly be the world in which his father and mother lived. All those people and all their children couldn’t be part of a community that was this grey and doom swept. In this eerie place, full of so much sadness, Mathias could understand why, in this village, these people and their children had either gone or were in hiding.
Looming over all of this, was the castle in the sky. Mathias really couldn’t see it, but it was there. It was always there. He could feel it drawing him in, and it was succeeding. Mouse said no one ever goes to the castle, but Mathias was convinced it was there that he would find the rider, and the boy.
Mathias was still trying to wrap his mind around the moment Mouse was taken. The rider came out of nowhere. He was a blur. A deliberate, mean, calculated blur. He was a razor thin skeleton in black and red. He wore a long black cape with a hood to hide his face. Tall black boots. Black pants. A black blouse. A long red vest trimmed in black and black gloves trimmed in red.
Mathias wasn’t sure he was ready to face the rider again or go to the dark castle, but he would if it meant saving the boy.
Suddenly this soundless world produced a chilling echo. The echo resounded throughout the dense black forest.
“Someone help me!”
It was the cry of a child. Mathias stood up on the long flat rock.
“Mouse,” he shouted, “is that you?”
Mathias waited. Just when he thought his imagination had created the voice, he heard it again.
“Please help me!”
This was the voice of a young girl, and she was terrified.
Mathias tried desperately to find the child through the darkness, but he couldn’t see well enough to locate her. She was everywhere in the forest around him. Running. Crying. Screaming. But he couldn’t see her. He couldn’t see her anywhere.
“Run to my voice!” he cried out.
He could hear her coming closer. She was so close, he could feel her fear.
“Someone help me, please!”
This voice was in front of him. It was coming right at him. Even in this darkness, Mathias understood there was no one there. This was just a voice. Then she passed right through him, and in that instant, he saw her.
A pretty, little blonde girl dressed as a princess. She was so scared. She looked so confused. Mathias could feel that she was heartbroken. Then she was gone, and the forest fell into a deafening silence.
But this time Mathias was not alone. The pretty, little blonde girl had left him with her fear as his companion. Tears began to well up inside of him. Her sense of desperation was so complete. Her feelings of hopelessness rang through his body. His heart hurt from her pain.
Then he heard hoof beats. This sound he knew. This sound he remembered. This sound made him run. He scrambled and tripped. He fell, but kept running. Low-lying branches snatched at him. Prickly bushes scratched at him and still he ran.
Mathias snagged his foot on a tree root and crashed to the ground. He could only lay there as the hoof beats came down upon him, and then passed over him. Like the pretty, little blonde girl, there was no rider. Only the ghost of the rider. Only the echo of a memory.
The forest fell silent again.
Mathias picked himself up and gradually found his way back to the path. He resumed his journey away from the madness of the village, through the lunacy of the forest and towards the sure insanity of the castle in the sky. At this moment, the mind of Mathias Bootmaker was twisted. He could no longer tell the real from the unreal. His mind and his body were weak. He needed to rest.
As Mathias walked he searched for the puzzle pieces. Some were there. Some were not. He was beginning to not care. There were new ones. Dark ones. Strange ones. None of them fit together. None of it mattered anymore. Mathias was alone in a world he did not know. He was lonely in a place where isolation seemed a given, and he had lost a child that was lost himself.
Mathias counted each uncertain step he took. Each step was getting him closer to Mouse. The sand on the path was still dark, but it was beginning to shimmer. With each step he took, Mathias could see more of it. He could also see there was a turn in the path. He could see because there was a source of light up ahead of him.
He started moving faster through the turn, but he remained cautious. He spotted a large boulder just off the path. He stayed low and ran to it. It provided him cover to spy on the scene taking place just beyond him.
There was what appeared to be an inn or tavern at the side of the road. The light came from two brass lanterns hanging on long poles set on either side of the small path leading to its door. The door was open, and a man was standing beside a carriage that had stopped in front of the establishment.
The small, burly man wore a long, filthy apron. His rolled up sleeves exposed his big muscular arms. He wore loose-fitting work pants, and his work boots were unlaced. The man ran his thick fingers through his unkempt red hair. He was desperately trying to improve his appearance for the occupant of the carriage.
He wiped his hands, front and back, on the apron and gingerly reached out with his right hand, palm up.
A hand reached out from the carriage window. It was very much like a child’s hand, but aged. The occupant dropped seven silver coins, one by one, onto the innkeeper’s waiting palm. The burly man bowed. He then went to the back of the carriage and began to turn a heavily tarnished key set into the rear of the coach. A ratcheting sound could be heard with each turn.
The man knocked twice on the roof, and the carriage lurched forward.
Mathias was fascinated by the conveyance. Its dainty size was more for a child than it was for an adult. It was obvious that it had once been a beautiful piece of craftsmanship that was no longer cared for. But the thing that was most curious about the carriage was that it had no driver and no horses.
It had the classic shape of a covered horse drawn carriage, but it moved entirely under its own power. It was a very well designed, very sophisticated mechanical toy.
The large wind up toy travelled to the end of the road where a jumble of trees and branches and roots blocked any further passage. The plaything did not stop. It travelled right into the blockade. It seemed to melt right through it.
The innkeeper stood and watched this happen. He didn’t seem at all surprised by the vehicle’s mystical exit. Once the carriage was gone, he counted each coin, one by one, one hand to the other. Convinced he had not been cheated, he pocketed the bounty and with a noticeable limp, stepped back into the inn.
Having no
other choice, Mathias walked towards the small structure. Its construction was sound, but its haphazard collection of construction materials gave it an unbalanced appearance. Woods of various sizes and shapes blended with stones of various weights and colors. Brick and mortar framed the door and windows, and large lumbering logs created a tall, imposing roof.
When Mathias arrived at the door, he found his only clue to the name of this establishment.
A weathered rope was looped around a large rusted nail that had long ago been imbedded into the center of the door. The rope was tied on either end to a fractured plank of wood.
Carved and burned into the plank was the image of a house on one side and what Mathias believed to be a representation of the castle in the sky on the other. A series of lines connected the two structures, and at their center was a large X.
The castle in the sky was his destination. The small house was the village he had come from. The lines were the road he was walking on, and the mark at its center was where he stood. Anyone traveling in either direction would find this spot the middle of their journey.
This place was the Inn Between.
Mathias tried peeking through the two large windows at the front of the inn. There was faint light coming from within, but the decorative etched glass provided no view. Not knowing what to expect, he slowly pushed the door open and took one step over the threshold.
8.
The Village Darke
The Inn Between was bare and the innkeeper was not to be seen. Its small main room had a bar to the right of the entry. A door in the corner behind it led to what Mathias assumed was a storeroom. Mathias suspected the innkeeper was in there, hiding his new found wealth.
There were four simple square wooden tables, each with four simple round wooden stools. Each table had a tall white candle in a short brass holder. Each candle was lit, and they provided the only light in the room.
Three of the tables and their stools were covered in a thick layer of dust. This inn did not receive many visitors. The fourth, set apart from the others, had been moved to the back corner of the room. This pristine table and stools were situated to best take advantage of the only other window in the room.
At that table, with her back to the wall and her gaze transfixed out the small window, sat a thin and mysterious woman. Her shocking white hair fell past her shoulders and down to her waist. She wore several layers of purple garments. No one garment was the same shade of purple, and in the wash of candlelight, she seemed to move even though she sat quite still.
The mysterious woman seemed indifferent to the other woman seated at the table with her. She was young, and her clothes were drab and grey. In comparison to the dramatic countenance of the mysterious woman, the young woman appeared small and frail. Even though she sat with her back to Mathias, he could tell she was crying.
The crying woman stood up, dropped a coin on the table and ran towards the door. As she brushed past Mathias, he could see her eyes were red from what could only have been endless crying. The woman ran out the door and up the road towards the village.
Mathias wasn’t sure what to do, but he needed help. He stepped into the inn and started towards the woman.
“Excuse me,” he said to her, “I’m a traveler and I’ve lost my way.”
A knife flew through the air and stuck in the table top closest to him. Mathias turned to find the innkeeper standing behind the bar. His big arms were crossed on his chest.
“I’m also looking for a young boy,” Mathias said to his would be murderer. “We were traveling together. We became separated.”
Mathias pulled the blade from the table. Like the man that wielded it, the knife was rustic and roughly fashioned and very sharp. Mathias held the knife by the short wide blade.
“Have you seen the boy?” he asked the innkeeper.
In the long silence that followed, Mathias laid the knife down on the table.
“Where is this place?” he asked of them both. “Where am I?”
The mysterious woman never took her gaze from the window as she slowly lifted her hand and pointed to the stool across from her. With a quick glance at the innkeeper, Mathias cautiously approached and took the crying woman’s place at the table.
The woman broke her distant stare and looked directly at him for the first time. Her gaze was powerful and Mathias suddenly felt vulnerable. Then she reached inside his mind.
“The castle in the sky has a name.” she said.
The woman never took her eyes away from his as she leaned in closer to him.
“It’s called Darke Tower Castle,” she whispered.
“Remember your place, woman,” the innkeeper barked, “or your benefactor will come down and remind you.”
“That thing is not my benefactor,” she snapped back after breaking her gaze. “He is yours.”
The mysterious woman picked the coin up from the table and began to polish it against her sleeve.
“I ask for no compensation,” she said as she held the coin up to the candlelight. “It is given as a token of appreciation.”
With just the right turn, she caught the candle light. The coin burst into brilliance. The reflected light traveled across her face. Her lips were thin and tight. Her nose was small and round. Her skin was a pale map of lines and wrinkles. When the light crossed over her violet eyes, Mathias recognized that this had once been a very beautiful woman.
She dropped the coin into a small purple bag that hung from her neck on a delicate purple chain.
“To understand anything in this world,” she began, “you have to first know the tragic story of Lord and Lady Darke and their two children, Oracle and Rebecca.”
“Alma, please,” the innkeeper pleaded.
“I am a teller of tales,” she said sharply. “You are a keeper of inns. And since you have only one charming, but dismal, little inn, and I have many fascinating and colorful tales to tell, I can do as I please.”
With the innkeeper properly silenced, Alma closed her eyes. She sat quietly gathering her thoughts and breathing gently. After a moment, she opened her eyes and began again.
“Welcome to the Village Darke, where it is said that for many years its people lived and worked in relative peace and happiness. Under the governance of the Darke family, they lived their lives without incident, raising their children to grow up to be skilled artisans, industrious farmers and smart shopkeepers.”
“They worked together as a community, to solve whatever problems arose, and they celebrated together whenever something wonderful happened, as they did the day when Lady Darke gave birth to their firstborn. A son. They named him Oracle.”
There was a loud bang as the innkeeper began to shutter the large windows. Satisfied they were secured, he snatched his knife from the table and returned it to the sheath at his hip. He closed the door and locked it. He slid the key from the keyhole and held it up for Alma to see.
“There will be no wanderings for you tonight. After this, this story you’re telling to this stranger. It won’t be safe for you to be out and about.”
“It’s never safe for anyone to be out and about,” she whispered under her breath.
The innkeeper did not hear what she said, but he could recognize her mumblings of defiance. He began mumbling himself as he walked back behind the bar to the storeroom. He slammed the door hard.
Alma looked at the closed door and smiled a strange little smile. She reached behind her stool for a long thin cane that rested against the wall. Rejecting an offer of assistance from Mathias, the woman pushed herself up with the aid of the cane. She was much taller than Mathias had first thought.
She seemed to glide gently across the stone floor of the inn. Her long layered skirt trailed respectfully behind her. She moved around the room to each of the other tables and blew every candle out until only the one on her table remained. Finished setting the stage, Alma returned the cane to its proper place against the wall, sat down slowly, and faced Mathias once more.
“As time passed and little Oracle grew up, Lord and Lady Darke were consumed with the affairs of ruling the land and running a well organized and efficient household and as such, had less and less time for him. Feeling very lonely, being the only child in a huge castle, Oracle, like many children his age, created an imaginary friend to keep him company.”
Alma quickly turned to the empty stool to her right.
“What was that you said?” she asked in a child’s voice, of no one there. “Oh, of course,” came her reply to the air. “No, I promise no one will ever know, but remember, you are my friend and you will only do my bidding.”
“And he kept this secret,” she said to Mathias in her own hypnotic voice. “This was his friend, and no one else could play.”
The woman began to gather the extra layers of fabric from her skirt that rested on her lap. She bunched up the cloth until it formed a little bundle.
“Oracle was ten when Lord and Lady Darke had another baby, a little girl they named Rebecca.”
Alma could see the baby in the bundle she had created. She nestled it in the crook of her arm. She playfully wiggled her finger in front of the bundle baby’s face. She rocked it gently back and forth. She spoke sweetly to the child.
“Instead of being happy that he would now have company and someone real to play with, your brother could only imagine how you would soon take away whatever little attention your parents had afforded him before you were born. As you grew older, his heart grew ever colder.
“He spent hours conspiring with his imaginary friend ruminating about how grand it would be if your parents disappeared, leaving him to be supreme ruler of his kingdom. What would your fate be then, sweet little Rebecca?”
She slowly released the bundle of fabric from her grasp, and the baby disappeared. The candlelight had caught Alma’s eye. Mathias followed her gaze as it swept down the length of the candle. She found a spot on the table just in front of the brass holder. She stretched out her hand, pointed with her long pale finger and tapped the spot three times with her purple painted nail.
It Is Said (Mathias Bootmaker and the Keepers of the Sandbox) Page 7