The Seeing Stone

by Tony DiTerlizzi

  “Maybe you shouldn’t have done that,” said Mallory.

  “I don’t care.” Jared put his bitten finger in his mouth. “We have to find Simon.”

  “Does that thing work?” Mallory asked.

  “Let’s see.” Jared held the stone up to his eye and looked out the window.

  “They’re headed right for us.”

  Chapter Three

  IN WHICH Mallory Finally Gets to Put Her Rapier to Good Use

  Through the small hole in the stone, Jared saw goblins. There were five of them, all with faces like frogs’ and eyes that were dead white with no pupil at all. Hairless, cat-like ears stuck up from their heads, and their teeth were pieces of shattered glass and small, jagged rocks. Their green, bloated bodies moved swiftly over the lawn. One held a stained sack while the rest scented the air like dogs, moving in the direction of the carriage house. Jared backed away from the window, almost tripping on an old bucket.

  “They’re headed right for us,” he whispered, ducking down.

  Mallory gripped her foil more tightly, knuckles white. “What about Simon?”

  “I didn’t see him.”

  She lifted up her head and peered outside. “I don’t see anything,” she said.

  Jared crouched down with the stone clutched in his palm. He could hear the goblins outside, grunting and shuffling as they got closer. He didn’t dare look through the stone again.

  Then Jared heard the sound of old wood snapping.

  A rock hit one of the windows.

  “They’re coming,” Jared said. He shoved the Guide into his backpack, not bothering to buckle it.

  “Coming?” Mallory replied. “I think they’re here.”

  Claws scraped at the side of the barn and little barks came from beneath the window. Jared’s stomach turned to lead. He couldn’t move.

  “We have to do something,” he whispered.

  “We’re going to have to make a run for the house,” Mallory whispered back.

  “We can’t,” Jared said. The memory of the goblins’ jagged teeth and claws wouldn’t leave him.

  “A couple more planks and they’ll be inside.”

  He nodded numbly, steeling himself to rise. Fumbling, he tried to fit the stone into the eyepiece and attach it to his head. The clip pinched his nose.

  “On my mark,” said Mallory. “One. Two. Three. Go!”

  She opened the door and they both sprinted toward the house. Goblins hurtled after them. Clawed hands caught at Jared’s clothes. He wrenched free and ran on.

  Mallory was faster. She was almost to the door of the house when a goblin caught the back of Jared’s shirt and pulled hard. He went down on his stomach in the grass. The stone flew out of the monocle. He dug his fingers into the dirt, holding on as much as he could, but he was being dragged backward.

  He could feel the clasps on his pack loosening, and he screamed.

  Mallory turned. Instead of running on toward the house, she started running back to him. Her fencing sword was still in her hand, but there was no way she could know what she was up against.

  He was being dragged backward.

  “Mallory!” Jared shouted. “No! Run away!”

  At least one goblin must have gone past him, because he saw Mallory’s arm jerk and heard her cry out. Red lines appeared where nails scraped her. The headphones were ripped free from her neck. She spun and lashed out with the rapier, dealing a stinging blow to the air. It didn’t seem like she had hit anything. She swung the sword in an arc, but again, nothing.

  Jared kicked out hard with one of his legs, striking something solid. He felt the grip that held him slip, and he pulled himself forward, yanking his backpack out of their grasp. The contents spilled out and Jared was barely able to snatch up the Guide in time. Reaching around in the grass, he picked up the stone and scrambled to where Mallory was. Then he brought the stone to his eye and looked.

  “Six o’clock,” he shouted, and Mallory whirled, striking in that direction, catching a goblin across the ear. It howled. Rapier blades didn’t have points but they sure stung when they hit.

  “Shorter, they’re shorter.” Jared managed to pull himself to his feet so that he was standing with his back against Mallory’s. All five goblins were circling them.

  One lunged from the right. “Three o’clock,” Jared shouted.

  Mallory knocked the goblin to the ground easily.

  “Twelve o’clock! Nine o’clock! Seven o’clock!” They were rushing all at once, and Jared didn’t think Mallory could possibly manage. He hefted the field guide and swung it as hard as he could at the nearest goblin.

  Thwack! The book hit the goblin hard enough to send it sprawling backward. Mallory had knocked down two more with hard blows. Now they circled more warily, gnashing teeth of glass and stone.

  All five goblins were circling them.

  There was a strange call, like a cross between a bark and a whistle.

  At that sound, the goblins retreated one by one into the woods.

  Jared collapsed onto the grass. His side hurt and he was out of breath.

  “They’re gone,” Jared said. He held out the stone to Mallory. “Look.”

  Mallory sat down next to him and held it up to her eye. “I don’t see anything, but I didn’t see anything a minute ago either.”

  “They still might come back.” Jared rolled over and opened the Guide, flipping through the pages quickly. “Read this.”

  “ ‘Goblins travel in roving bands looking for trouble.’ ” Mallory scowled at the words. “And look, Jared—‘Cats and dogs missing is a sign that goblins are in the area.’ ”

  They exchanged a glance. “Tibbs,” Jared said with a shudder.

  Mallory read on. “ ‘Goblins are born without teeth and so find substitutes, such as the fangs of animals, sharp rocks, and pieces of glass.’ ”

  “But it doesn’t say anything about how to stop them,” said Jared. “Or where they might have taken Simon.”

  Mallory didn’t look up from the page.

  Jared tried to keep his mind from imagining what the goblins might want with Simon. It seemed pretty obvious to him what they did with the cats and dogs, but he didn’t want to believe that his brother could be . . . could be eaten. His gaze fell on the illustration of those horrible teeth.

  Surely not. Surely there was some other explanation.

  Mallory took a deep breath and pointed to the illustration. “It’s going to be dark soon, and with eyes like that, they probably have better night vision than we do.”

  That was pretty smart. Jared resolved to write a note in the Guide about it when they got Simon back. He took off the eyepiece and slid the stone into place again, but the clamps were too loose to hold it.

  “It doesn’t work,” Jared said.

  “You have to adjust it,” said Mallory. “We need a screwdriver or something.”

  Jared took a pocketknife from the back pocket of his pants. It had a screwdriver, a little knife, a magnifying glass, a file, bent scissors, and a place where there had once been a toothpick. Screwing down the clamps carefully, he fitted the stone into place.

  “Here, let me tie it on your head right.” Mallory knotted the leather straps until the monocle-apparatus was on tight. Jared had to squint a little to see properly, but it was much better than before.

  “Take this,” Mallory said, and handed him a practice rapier. The end wasn’t pointed, though, so he wasn’t sure how much real damage it could do.

  Time to find Simon

  Still, it felt better to be armed. Tucking the Guide into his backpack, tightening the straps, and holding the sword in front of him, Jared started back down the hill into the darkening woods.

  It was time to find Simon.

  The air was different.

  Chapter Four

  IN WHICH Jared and Mallory Find Many Things, but Not What They’re Looking For

  Stepping into the woods, Jared felt a slight chill. The air was different, full of the smell
of green things and fresh dirt, but the light was murky. He and Mallory stepped through tangles of jewelweed and past thin trees heaped with vines. Somewhere above them a bird started calling, making a harsh sound like an alarm. Beneath their footsteps, the ground was slick with moss. Twigs snapped as they passed and Jared heard the distant sound of water.

  There was a streak of brown, and a small owl settled on a low branch. Its head cocked toward them as it bit into the small, limp mouse in its claw.

  Mallory pushed through a knot of bushes, and Jared followed. Tiny burrs caught on his clothes and in his hair. They sidled around the crumbling trunk of a fallen tree swarming with black ants.

  There was something different about his vision with the stone in place. Everything was brighter and more clear. But there was something else, too. Things moved in the grass, in the trees, things he couldn’t quite see but was aware of for the first time. Faces made of bark and rock and moss that he only saw for an instant. It was as though the whole of the forest was alive.

  “There.” Mallory fingered a broken branch and pointed to where clumps of ferns had been trampled. “That’s the way they went.”

  They followed the trail of smashed weeds and snapped branches until they came to a stream. By then the woods had grown more shadowed, and the twilight sounds had increased. A cloud of gnats settled on them for a moment, then blew out toward the water.

  “What do we do now?” Mallory asked. “Can you see anything?”

  Jared squinted through the eyepiece and shook his head. “Let’s just follow the stream. The trail has to pick up again.”

  They walked on through the forest.

  “Mallory,” Jared whispered, pointing at a huge oak tree. Tiny green and brown creatures were perched on a branch. Their wings resembled leaves, but their faces seemed almost human. Instead of hair, grass and flower buds grew from their tiny heads.

  “What are you looking at?” Mallory raised her rapier and took two steps backward.

  Jared shook his head slightly. “Sprites . . . I think.”

  “Why do you have that stupid expression on your face?”

  “They’re just . . . ” He couldn’t quite explain. He extended his hand, palm up, and stared in amazement as one of the creatures alighted on his finger. Soft feet tickled his skin as the tiny faerie blinked up at him with black eyes.

  “Jared,” Mallory said impatiently.

  At the sound of her voice, the sprite jumped into the air. Jared watched as it spiraled upward into the leaves above.

  The patches of sunlight filtering through the trees became tinged with orange. Up ahead, the stream widened where it ran under the remains of a stone bridge.

  Jared could feel his skin prickle as they got closer to the rubble, but there was no sign of goblins. The stream was very wide, almost twenty feet across, and there was a darkness in the middle that seemed to speak of deep water.

  One alighted on his finger.

  Jared heard a distant sound like metal grating against metal.

  Mallory stopped, looked across the water, and raised her head. “Did you hear that?”

  “Could it be Simon?” Jared asked. He hoped it wasn’t. It didn’t sound human at all.

  “I don’t know,” Mallory said, “but whatever it was, it’s got something to do with those goblins. Come on!” With that, Mallory bounded in the direction of the noise.

  “Don’t go in there, Mallory,” Jared said. “It’s too deep.”

  “Don’t be a baby,” she said, and waded into the stream. She made two long strides and then dropped as though she had stepped off the edge of a cliff. Dark green water closed over her head.

  Jared lunged forward. Dropping his rapier onto the bank, he plunged his hand into icy cold water. His sister bobbed to the surface, sputtering. She grabbed for his arm.

  He had pulled her halfway onto the bank when something began to surface behind her. At first it seemed like a hill rising from the water, stony and covered in moss. Then a head emerged, the deep green of rotten river grass, with small black eyes, a nose that was gnarled like a branch, and a mouth full of cracked teeth. A hand reached toward them. Its fingers were as long as roots, and its nails were black with murk. Jared breathed in the stench of the bottom of the pool, putrid leaves, and old, old mud.

  He screamed. His mind went completely blank. He couldn’t move.

  Mallory pulled herself the rest of the way onto the bank and looked over her shoulder. “What is it? What do you see?”

  Something began to surface.

  At her voice, Jared snapped into moving and stumbled woodenly away from the stream, tugging her along with him. “Troll,” he gasped.

  The creature lunged after them. Long fingers dragged through the grass just short of where they were.

  Then the creature howled and Jared looked back, but he couldn’t see what had happened. It felt toward them again but jerked away when one long finger fell into a beam of light. The monster bellowed.

  “The sun,” Jared said. “It got burned by the sun.”

  “There’s not much sun left,” Mallory replied. “Let’s go.”

  “Waaait,” the monster whispered. Its voice was soft.

  Yellow eyes regarded them steadily. “Cooome baaack. I haaave something for youuu.” The troll extended a closed hand as though something might indeed be clutched in its palm.

  “Jared, come on.” Mallory’s voice was almost pleading. “I can’t see what you’re talking to.”

  “Have you seen my brother?” Jared asked.

  “Perhaaaps. I heard something a tiiime ago, but it was bright, too bright to look.”

  “That was him! It must have been. Where did they go?”

  The head swung toward the remnants of the bridge and then looked back at Jared. “Cooome closer and I will tell you.”

  Jared took a step back. “No way.”

  “Aaat leassst cooome geeet youuur sssword.” The troll gestured to the rapier beside itself. The sword was lying on the bank, where Jared had dropped it. He looked over at his sister. Her hands were empty too. She must have left her sword at the bottom of the pool.

  Mallory took a half-step forward. “That’s the only weapon we have.”

  “Cooome and taaake it. I will clooose my eyeees if it will maake you feeel saaafer.” One huge hand covered its eyes.

  Mallory looked at the sword in the mud. Her eyes focused on it in a way that made Jared very nervous. She was thinking about trying for it.

  “You can’t even see the thing,” Jared hissed. “Let’s go.”

  “But the sword . . . ”

  Jared untied the eyepiece and held it out to her. Her face went pale at the sight of the massive creature, peeking through a gap in its fingers, imprisoned only by the fading patches of sunlight.

  “Come on,” she said shakily.

  “Noooo,” called the troll. “Cooome baaack. I’ll eeeven tuuurn arooound. I’ll cooount to ten. It’ll beee a faaair chaaance. Come baaaack.”

  Jared and Mallory ran on through the woods until they found a patch of sunlight to stop in. Both leaned against the thick trunk of an oak and tried to catch their breath. Mallory was shivering. Jared didn’t know if it was because she was soaked or because of the troll. He unzipped his sweatshirt, took it off, and handed it to her.

  “We’re lost,” Mallory said between gulps of air. “And we’re unarmed.”

  “At least we know they couldn’t have crossed the stream,” said Jared, struggling to tie the eyepiece back on his head. “The troll would have gotten them for sure.”

  “But the sound was on the other side.” Mallory kicked a tree, chipping off bark.

  Jared’s nose caught the scent of something burning. It was faint, but he thought it smelled like scorched hair.

  “Do you smell that?” Jared asked.

  “That way,” Mallory said.

  They crashed through the brush, heedless of the scratches twigs and thorns made along their arms. Jared’s thoughts were all of his b
rother and fire.

  “Look at this.” Mallory stopped abruptly. She reached into the grass and picked up a single brown shoe.

  “It’s Simon’s.”

  “I know,” Mallory said. She turned it over, but Jared couldn’t see any clues, except that it was muddy.

  “You don’t think he’s . . . ” Jared couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “No, I don’t!” Mallory shoved the shoe in the front pocket of her sweatshirt.

  He nodded slowly, allowing himself to be convinced.

  A little farther, and the trees began to thin. They stepped out onto a highway. Black asphalt stretched off into the distant horizon. Behind it all, the sun was setting in a blaze of purple and orange.

  A single brown shoe

  And on the shoulder of the road, in the distance, a group of goblins huddled around a fire.

  Sinister wind chimes

  Chapter Five

  IN WHICH the Fate of the Missing Cat Is Discovered

  Jared and Mallory approached the goblin camp cautiously, dodging from trunk to trunk. Broken bits of glass and gnawed bones littered the ground. High in the trees they could see cages woven from thornbushes, plastic bags, and other refuse. Squashed soda cans hung from the branches, clattering together like sinister wind chimes.

  Ten goblins sat around a fire. The blackened body of something that looked a lot like a cat turned on a stick. Every now and then one of the goblins would lean over to lick the charred meat, and the goblin turning the spit would bark loudly. Then they would all start barking.