by Ken Brosky
The moment we arrived, our stomachs collectively hollowed out. The smell of fresh baked bread and savory spiced meats made me forget all about my exhaustion, sending my salivary glands into overdrive. The waitress led us to the windows overlooking the main street, pushing together two tables and handing us menus. Since none of us spoke Hungarian, we had to rely on Mrs. Satrapi’s limited knowledge of the soup names.
“Just get whatev,” Margaret said, tossing the menu aside. “Seriously, how can anything be bad with those smells coming from the kitchen?”
Jasmine pouted. “I would just kill for some carbs, though.”
“Do they have French fries?” Miguel asked from across the table.
Mrs. Satrapi shook her head. “No, dear. But there may be krokett, made with fried mashed potato and nutmeg.”
Rachel set down her menu. “That sounds amazing. And I’m trying the goulash, too.”
“Goulash,” Seth agreed. He was sitting beside me. Chase sat beside him, with the rest of the boys and Mr. Whitmann at the end of the table.
“Alice?” Mrs. Satrapi asked. She was sitting across from me, along with her daughter. “Do you want goulash or do you want to try something else?”
“Goulash is fine,” I said.
Mrs. Satrapi took the initiative of ordering for everyone, struggling a bit with the drinks. Luckily, “Coke” was a worldwide brand. I stared out the window, examining the beautiful ancient cathedral across the street. It had tall windows and was made of massive stone blocks, with marble statues sitting above the wide front doors. American cathedrals didn’t have anything on this building—it looked as if it had been carved from a mountain, with two looming spires reaching toward the cloudy sky and a dark red dome between them. Near the top of each spire, the structure opened up, revealing a massive bell.
“You like?” the waitress asked, setting down my cup of milk.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“Those bells are special,” she said. She set down Seth’s Coke. “The one on the left has never been rung. Legend has it that the one on the right has been rung only once, on the night the wolves were driven out by the hero. We call that one the hero’s bell.”
“Hero’s bell?” I asked.
The waitress nodded. Her thick eyebrows knotted together. “The bell will ring again someday, when a hero is needed.”
“Um …” Seth raised his hand. “How come there’s no ice in my Coke?”
The waitress smiled patiently. “We only provide ice when asked for. Your food comes soon.”
“Great,” Seth murmured, staring at his cup. “Next you’ll tell me … wait!” His eyes went wide, scanning the long table. “There’s no ketchup. Oh sweet lord in heaven, there’s no ketchup. I’m doomed!”
“Seth, this will be a wonderful experience for you,” Mrs. Satrapi said. “A well-prepared meal doesn’t need ketchup.”
“Oh sure,” Seth murmured, sipping his soda. “This place is whack.”
“I second that,” Chase said.
Mrs. Satrapi sighed, obviously frustrated. Frustrated and tired. Despite being the most well-traveled among us, she was starting to wear down, too. My morbid mind wondered what would happen if a Corrupted showed up right now, casting aside the waitress and the empty tables next to the small empty bar as creature trudged toward the meaty Americans sitting beside the window.
Think, Alice: what would you do?
The restaurant was small, homely. There was a half-wall dividing the dining area in two, with a couple fellow train passengers sitting on the other side and taking turns picking at a plate of fresh bread. The tables were small, square, and wobbly. Each one had a lit candle as the centerpiece. The walls were decorated with colorful red and brown and gray wallpaper, peppered with photographs encased in thin frames. Dim lights hung from the dusty ceiling.
The chairs were flimsy. They could be broken. If I couldn’t use my pen, I could use splinters of chair to slow the monster down. If that didn’t work, there was alcohol behind the little bar area. High proof alcohol was extremely flammable. I could douse the monster in alcohol, then use one of the table candles to light him on fire. Then I could run outside, drawing him away from everyone else.
… And then what? Run into the cathedral? Run down the street?
I had no idea. Just like Sam Grayle, I was out of my element. In Milwaukee, I always felt like I was only a few blocks away from some place that I knew. It was something I’d taken for granted—the comfort of familiar surroundings. Here, it was completely different. I didn’t know anything about the geography. I felt as if I was five years old all over again, begging my mom to hold my hand as we walked through the scary mall filled with people I didn’t know.
“Excuse me,” I said, getting up. I went into the bathroom near the entrance, splashing cold water over my hands and pressing my cooled fingertips against my throbbing eyes. When I looked in the mirror, Briar was standing behind me.
“Er, should I leave?” he asked.
“No,” I said, locking the door. “I just needed some space. And I’d kill for some eye drops. I feel like I’ve been up for days.”
“Ah, jet-lag.” He paced the tiled floor, clicking his tongue. “This reminds me of a hero named Sir Gregory the Gallant. A real go-getter, if my research is correct. Too much of a go-getter, actually.”
“He traveled a lot?”
“Oh heavens, no. This was before planes were common and before the magic pen was carried across the Atlantic to the United States. No, Gregory the Gallant simply despised sleeping. It caught up to him quick enough. Pretty soon, the poor fool was hallucinating in the streets, babbling like a rabid baboon.”
“Nice imagery,” I said, using a square of paper towel to pat my eyes dry. A look in the mirror revealed that my makeup couldn’t hide my exhaustion. I needed sleep. Food, then sleep.
“Anywho! He was taken to a mental hospital and locked up. All this talk of Corrupted monsters and the such didn’t go over so well.”
“How did the pen travel to a new hero?” I asked.
Briar shrugged. “The pen always finds a way, it seems.”
“Like it has a plan.” I sighed. “Briar, I don’t know anything about Hungary. Or Romania, for that matter. How the freakin’ heck are we going to find Tom Thumb?”
“Maybe we don’t need to,” he said, ears raised. “Maybe tonight, you won’t even dream about him! In that case, I say let bygones be bygones. We have bigger fish to fry in Romania anyway.”
“Yeah. Corrupted, along with a side order of vampires. I can’t wait.”
Chapter 6
Darkness. Then: the orange sun rising over a tree-covered horizon, igniting the sky. The trees were a species of pine, standing tall and green and shaped like arrows. A breeze let their branches shrug off fresh snow. A bird chirped from one of the trees.
It was all pretty uneventful. Right up until the first giant stood up.
I gasped, watching him rise up between the tall trees. He was shirtless, which I suppose shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. He had thick muscles and pale skin that was stained by years of dirt and grime. His face was hideous, flanked by two misshapen ears. On top of his head was a patchy collection of black hairs, each one longer than the branches of the trees.
“This is impossible,” I said. My voice came out in a whisper. I looked down. I was floating, transparent. A good old-fashioned hero’s dream, that’s what this was.
But when? That was the question. There was no way a giant was walking around in the twenty-first century.
Check that: giants. Plural. They stood up in their own section of forest, brushing aside the branches of pine trees in the process. The snap of the branches echoed like crackling thunder as each giant emerged; their beady dark eyes narrowed, searching by their feet. There were seven giants total, all of them standing still, blinking, examining the expansive forest, their hot breaths coming out in cloud-sized steam. I could smell them. They smelled like a year’s worth of swea
ty gym socks splashed with expired milk.
“He’ll kill you all.”
I willed my body to turn around. The voice had sounded so close. I was at the edge of the forest where it met with a snow-covered clearing. No tracks disturbed the gentle surface.
“Run away now!” came the voice. I turned back to the forest. It was coming from somewhere in there, nearby. But where?
Suddenly, one of the giants roared, pointing to a tight patch of trees in front of him. The other giants turned, grunting. Something flew up from between the trees … an arrow! It soared through the air and hit the nearest giant. He used his pudgy fingers to pluck the arrow from his shoulder, then cried out as two more hit him.
Burning blackness infected the wounds.
“A hero!” I whispered. I willed my body to rise above the trees, feeling my pajamas catch in the cool wind. Above the tree line, I could see all the giants more clearly now. They wore menacing expressions, groaning like some kind of prehistoric dinosaur as they pushed aside trees, lumbering in slow-motion toward their target. The trees fell over with deafening cracks, kicking up plumes of snow that mushroomed up above the canopy. Two of the giants reached down, each grabbing a tree and pulling it from its roots. They lifted the trees over their heads and threw them in the direction of where the arrow had come from.
The wounded giant fell to his knees, letting out a thunderous roar that was choked silent as the burning blackness turned him to ashes.
“You’ll be killed for sure, my friend!”
I turned back to the others. Who was speaking? It obviously wasn’t one of the big guys. Their groans and moans seemed to be about as close to “talking” as they could get.
I inched my way closer.
Five of the giants had reached the place where the arrow came from. They used their hands to swat at the pine trees, snapping them in half. One giant had a thick, dark beard, with long hairs curling over his upper lip. Another had wild, uneven eyes that bulged from their sockets. Another one yet had reddish scars across his chest.
“Oh, they’re doing a wonderful job finding him,” came the voice. “Do they really think he’s not ready? In just one year, he’s found you and killed your brother! He’s a murderer, if you ask me.”
The sixth giant standing behind his brothers swatted at his big, floppy ear. He was wearing a cowhide to cover his unmentionables—like, literally, an entire cow’s hide, held in place by a thick rope. As I floated closer, I was dismayed to learn he hadn’t bothered to give his butt the same treatment.
“Gross,” I muttered, moving higher to take an angle that didn’t make his bare rear quite so visible.
There came a commotion near the other giants. The one with the bulging eyes was stumbling backward now, tearing away trees and holding his left hand in the air. It was missing a finger, and the burning blackness quickly began traveling up his arm. He fell back against one of the bigger pines—nearly as tall as him—and its top half snapped off with a sharp crack. The giant fell beneath the canopy, landing on the forest floor.
White powder and black ash kicked up in the form of a tiny mushroom cloud.
“That’s two down now! Will you listen to me or will it take an arrow to the eye to convince you to run?”
I moved closer to the hesitant giant who was slinking back, using the taller pines as cover. He looked … well he looked ugly. He had a hard, angular face, as if he’d been carved out of Mount Rushmore. But he also looked a little concerned. Stupid he was not.
“Look!” came the voice. “Did I not tell you this pest is bloody dangerous?! He’s a hero. That’s what they call him. He has the power to destroy us! No one knows where he came from. Our kind are fleeing in terror, and I suggest we do the same!”
I turned back to the four remaining giants. There was an arrow sailing through the air, arcing in the blue backdrop of the sky before falling, falling, slipping between two of the giants who had both luckily made the same selfless decision to push each other out of the way.
Another arrow emerged from the trees, about a hundred feet from the nearest giant.
Then another.
Then another.
They came with blinding speed, as if there were multiple heroes hiding among the pines. The giants too were impressed—no, not impressed … terrified. Their mouths gaped open at the sight of a flock of pointy sticks seeking them out. Two of the arrows hit the scarred giant’s long red chest scars like targets and he roared, falling over. His weight shattered two pines, splitting branches on his way down so it sounded as if the forest had burst into applause.
“Well, are you finally going to listen to old Tom Thumb, you big fool?” came the voice. I hovered closer to the cowering giant … searching. There! Standing on the giant’s left earlobe, clutching one of his gray ear hairs, was a tiny man. Tinier than me … no bigger than my foot, made even tinier by the giant’s massive size.
Tom Thumb.
He was wearing a little brown tunic and brown trousers that could have easily been stolen off a doll. He had shaggy red hair, freckles, and pointed, perky ears. Specks of glowing gold seemed engrained in his hair. Then he scratched his head, and I nearly laughed in spite of everything. Dandruff. Terrible, terrible glowing Corruption dandruff.
“Well at least you’ll be easy to find,” I said, watching the glowing dandruff float down, landing on the giant’s pale shoulder.
Tom Thumb turned in my direction, searching past me with narrowed blue eyes.
More crashing. The remaining two giants were thrashing the trees now, sweeping their hands across the canopies and snapping the trunks apart, kicking up bursts of white powder. The bearded one roared loud enough to make the entire forest to rumble.
“Have you ever heard the old saying He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day?” Tom Thumb asked his hesitant friend. “Well, have you? Perhaps now would be a time to test that theory. Hurry now, before this hero makes a fool out of you!”
The giant groaned, reaching down and grabbing one of the smaller pine trees. He tore it from the ground and hurled it in the direction of where the arrows had come from.
“Woah, now!” Tom Thumb exclaimed, clutching the ear hairs for dear life. He righted himself, scratching madly at his head. “I don’t think that will work, my friend.”
For a moment, the forest grew still. All three remaining giants were breathing heavily. I could smell the cowering giant’s fetid breath, sure that some wild animal was decomposing between his yellowed, flat teeth.
Then, all at once, as if they’d each had the same terrible thought—he’s going to attack right now!—all three giants held their breath.
The forest was silent.
“I don’t like this,” Tom Thumb whispered. His little pointed ear twitched.
A flock of bright red birds flew up from the pines at the edge of the forest. All three giants flinched, raising a hand. One swatted madly at them, succeeding only in stumbling forward and crashing into another tree.
“Oh, ha ha!” Tom Thumb said. “Gave us all a bit of a start, eh?”
Suddenly, something large emerged from deeper in the forest, breaching the canopy and soaring through the air. At first, I thought it was a fat bird, but as it flew closer, it grew bigger and bigger.
A rock.
No … a boulder. A big, jagged boulder. Arcing down right at the giant with the bulging eyes. He turned, roaring, his fat fingers held out in front of him.
Poof!
The giant’s entire body seemed to be consumed by burning blackness almost instantaneously. The boulder cut through the ashes, crashing into the trees and sending one flying into the air. The ground shook at the impact, nearly knocking over Tom Thumb’s friend.
“A boulder drawn with the magic pen,” I whispered in awe. How had this hero done it? How had he drawn a boulder? How had he drawn a catapult to throw it?
“Away we go!” Tom Thumb shouted frantically, clutching the ear hairs tighter as the giant slowly turned, pushing his wa
y through the trees. “Did you see that? He had a bloody catapult at the edge of the forest! He’s a savage assassin, is what he is! A terrible ruiner of lives! Run faster, you dolt! Ha ha, this isn’t the first time you’ve run away, I wager! What happened in your story again? Was it a tailor who frightened you so? No matter, friend! We’ve all had our bad experiences thanks to those nasty Brothers Grimm!”
The giant tore apart a towering pine, trudging through the forest, using his hands to brush aside anything in his way. He tripped once, then again, roaring in harried frustration.
I followed, glancing over my shoulder, wondering what else the hero had in mind for the second-to-last giant. My hopes were dashed, however, when the giant suddenly cried out, glancing down and reaching his arms between the pine trees. He flinched violently, his stringy black hair flopping over his face. The hero was near the giant’s feet, antagonizing him. Burning blackness began creeping its way up the giant’s back. The bearded one came to his brother’s aid, then quickly fell over, disappearing between the trees.
“Well, that’s that!” Tom Thumb shouted between his friend’s heavy, thundering footsteps. “You’re the last bloody giant in the world. I’m honored to know you.”
The giant grunted.
“Faster,” Tom Thumb urged. “Into the next valley. There’s a cave just beyond it. A big one. We’ll be safe there. For now, at least. Luckily for you and me, we need not kill this pesky fool. We need only outlive him … easy to do when you’re one of us, no?”
The giant grunted again.
“Speaking of outliving our enemies,” Tom Thumb said, “did I ever tell you about the time I was swallowed by a wolf? I was! In my story. My father cut his belly open to save me! This was in my story, of course. When the wolf was dead, I tried to live a simple life. But it turned out I was quite unique. In fact, I was the only tiny man in the entire world! A lonely existence. A miserable, lonely existence.”