Goldeline

by Jimmy Cajoleas

  First thing in the morning me and Tommy are busting out of here and taking off for Moon Haven.

  NINE

  “I’m sorry, little thing.”

  I blink my eyes open. It’s real dark in the hill. Over me like a troll in a nightmare is Zeb. He’s not in his cart, he’s standing up a little bit, and he’s got a red candle up to his face.

  “I ain’t evil,” he says. “Not a bit.”

  “Zeb?” I say.

  He sets the candle on the ground. In his other hand is a scrap of paper, symbols written on it, scribbled and gashed, no language I know.

  “It’s hard, just me out here, no momma to take care of me,” he says. “Yes sir. Hard to tend a garden when you’re all alone. Hard work keeping the rabbits out.”

  His face is so close to mine. I can see the dirt and food in his beard, and his breath smells like rotten things. Zeb bites his thumb until it bleeds. He smears a red streak across the paper, hooks it around like some strange letter, a symbol.

  “Boy needs his momma around,” he says. “Zeb needs a new momma. Hold still now, this won’t hurt you none.”

  I try to jump up but Zeb grabs me. He’s strong, stronger than I ever thought possible. I can’t stand up. I scream loud as I can, I scream with everything I got held up inside me.

  “Old magic,” he says. “Word magic. This won’t hurt none, but it will make you obedient.” I gnash my teeth at him, I scream and spit. “Yes sir, you’ll do everything I say. You’ll be a right good helper for old Zeb.”

  He presses the paper on my forehead, and with his other hand takes the candle and tilts it down at me. Red wax drips from the candle onto my skin. It sizzles and burns, the paper now sealed to my forehead.

  I feel it start, the color zapping out of my eyes, all sound going muffled and dull. I can’t think anymore, my mind is clearing, it’s so nice almost, to have no thoughts, to be free of Momma, of Gruff gone, of all my memories. There’s nothing now, just a soothing blank as my thoughts blow away like smoke.

  I’m going now . . . I’m going . . .

  I got to fight it. I got to hold tight to Momma. I got to remember her.

  Momma and me in our hut, laughing as the rain dribbles down through a leak in the ceiling.

  Momma singing paths through the woods, lighting the way with her song.

  Momma mending baby bones with a word and a prayer.

  Momma up on the scaffold, the Townies crowded round.

  Momma jeered at, Momma mocked.

  Momma’s pain, the Preacher’s torch glowing her face gold.

  It all turns to hurt and I scream my hurt up into Zeb’s grizzly awful face.

  Suddenly the paper’s gone, fluttered off somewhere. I don’t know how but Zeb is lying on his side next to me, holding the back of his head. Maybe I did it. Maybe my scream was like magic.

  But then I see flickers of Tommy in the candlelight, Zeb’s hoe in his hand.

  Zeb rises up to all fours. “You don’t understand, boy,” he says. “You don’t know what it’s like to work hard as old Zeb. You don’t know what it’s like to be out here, can’t go a mile. You don’t know what it’s like to need and need and need and never get a thing. And I ain’t ever gonna let you know. That kind of pain ain’t for you. I’ll fix you up good, ol’ Zeb will.”

  Zeb scuttles toward Tommy, dragging himself through the dirt.

  Tommy swings the hoe real hard this time. The hoe comes down on the back of Zeb’s head. The candle snuffs out. I get up and pull open the curtain. Moonlight shines through a crack in the front door, lighting Zeb facedown in the dirt.

  “Did I kill him?” says Tommy. His voice cracks.

  I bend down over Zeb.

  “Naw,” I say. “He’s still breathing. You knocked him out cold.”

  Tommy drops the hoe and sits on the floor next to Zeb.

  “I conked a stranger in his own home,” he says. “I’m on the run from the law. I’m a criminal now, aren’t I?”

  “But you’re a good criminal, because you did it for me.”

  “Can somebody be a good criminal?”

  “I think so. I hope so.”

  “I have to run now, don’t I? I have to be on the run with you.”

  “No you don’t,” I tell him. “You can blame it all on me. I’ll say I did it. You can leave now if you want.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t want to leave. I want to stick with you.”

  I smile at him, grateful despite myself.

  “Let’s look through this house and see what we can use,” I say.

  “You mean like stealing?” says Tommy.

  “Of course,” I say. “But good stealing. We’re like bandits on the run, remember?”

  “We’re still the good guys, right?”

  “Always, Tommy.”

  I step over to Zeb, soft and quiet as I can, and sneak the front door key out of his pocket. Zeb groans, but he doesn’t get up. I know we have to hurry. I set about looking for things we can use.

  Here’s what I find: a rucksack with a strap on it. It’s sturdy, made of leather. I needed a good pack. Inside I put three candles, Zeb’s carving knife, a canteen that I’ll fill with water from outside. In a trunk there’s a bunch of old-lady clothes, and I take a gray hooded cloak for myself, like my old one, the one I left at camp. It’s patchy and smells like feet, but it’ll have to do.

  Under Zeb’s cot there’s a tiny bag of coins, probably Zeb’s whole life savings. I can fit it in my hand. It makes me sorry for him, a little, living alone out here, missing his momma. But then I remember him over me in the night and I shiver and I can’t think about it anymore. I scratch the candle wax off my forehead.

  “Could Zeb have done that?” Tommy says. “Made you obey him?”

  “That was some bad magic Zeb was working,” I say. “You should have felt it. It was like my brain was a flock of birds that up and flew off. It was like I couldn’t think a thing if I wanted.”

  “I never seen real magic before,” says Tommy. “I never even really believed in it.”

  “Well you best be believing,” I say, ripping Zeb’s paper spells to shreds. “Seeing as we just found ourselves in a warlock’s den.”

  I put Zeb’s momma’s cloak on and turn to Tommy. “What do you think?”

  “It stinks,” he says.

  “So does everything else in here. You ready to go?”

  Tommy nods at me.

  At the door I take one look back at Zeb slumped over on the floor. I wish he hadn’t tried to magic me like that. Maybe we could have helped him, me and Tommy. Maybe we could have been his friends. But the way he talked about being treated by the Townies, by the law . . . well, why would he have expected us to treat him any different? I sing him a quick prayer and then shut the door behind me.

  Outside the sun is just coming up, a gray dawn in the wet dripping world. We set out quick and quiet into the morning woods, like squirrels, like wood spirits, like the motherless bandit ghosts who will never get caught, who will never be killed, who will find their way to the big white inn in my dreams.

  TEN

  We walk without talking, watching the morning wake itself up and stretch out like a cat. Hummingbirds float around like asked questions and bash into each other over a purple flower. The woods are misty and hot with last night’s rain, and the dew steams up from the ground like the forest’s own breath. I should be scared, but I’m not. I’m walking through the new morning with my friend.

  I don’t quite know which way to go, lost as we are, but I know there’s a road somewhere close maybe, a road worth looking for. We walk through thick woods and low tangled branches, around snake-dangling vines and spiderwebs taller and wider than me, down deer paths and lost ways. We pass foxes and raccoons and the slime trails of snails, the best kind who carry their houses on their backs, who are never lost, who can stop and always be home. But these woods aren’t my woods. They’re different, stranger, like there’s a weird silver sparkle at the edge of eve
rything, like any moment they could vanish and disappear and I’d be left in the gray fog of the world, nothing but God’s big eye staring down at me. This whole forest gives me that feeling. I never felt anything like it before.

  “You want to know where we’re going?” I say.

  “I didn’t know we were going anywhere,” says Tommy. “I thought we were just walking and hiding and being scared all the time.”

  “You think I’d lead you out here just to get lost?” I say. “Naw, Tommy, we’re going someplace special. We’re going to the best place in the whole Hinterlands.”

  “Where is that?” he says.

  “We’re going to Moon Haven!” I clap my hands together like it’s the greatest thing anybody ever said, like he’ll be so excited to know. But instead Tommy scowls at me.

  “You mean the bandit town? I heard about that place. I heard it was rotten. They told us in church it was a den of sin and ini . . . iniquit . . .”

  “Iniquity?”

  “Yeah, that word. They said it was the most evil place in the world.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t want to go there,” he says.

  “Aw, come on. What they said about Moon Haven isn’t true at all. You’ve seen the Preacher, what kind of liar he is. What makes you think the church folk are right about Moon Haven?”

  “Well, my preacher is nothing like that guy. I never met any other preacher half as mean as the one who is after us. My preacher is nice and his name is Reverend Blackburn. Sometimes he lets me light the seven candles all by myself, and once he even showed me what all they make the incense out of. Reverend Blackburn said Moon Haven is a town of gambling and iniquity. He said it’s just like the Two Tall Cities in the Book and that God’s going to burn it flat down. I don’t want to be there when that happens.”

  I want to tell him that the Two Tall Cities weren’t burned up for being all wicked, but for not being generous to the poor, to folks like me and Momma. That’s what gets a town burned up, not because there’s some fun to be had there. Still, I don’t think that would help much.

  “Preachers just say that kind of junk because they’re scared, Tommy. They’re scared of all the good stuff in the world and they want you to be scared of it too.”

  “What’s so good about a bandit town?” he says.

  “First off, sure there are bandits in Moon Haven, but you and me are practically bandits now, too, so we should fit right in. Second, there’s a place there, an inn, the Half-Moon Inn. It’s the most wonderful place in all the world.”

  “What’s so great about it?” he says, but I can tell he’s interested. Now I just got to sell it to him good.

  “Well, the food, for one. They got all kinds of food there. Funnel cakes and turkey legs and blueberry pie.”

  “They got cobbler?” says Tommy. “Blackberry cobbler’s my favorite.”

  “Of course they have cobbler!” I say. “As much cobbler as you want. There’s a grand ballroom in the Half-Moon Inn, and every night there’s a different show. It’s like a circus all the time. There’s artists and musicians and magic. Good magic, Tommy, nothing like what Zeb tried to do. A theater too, with romance stories, and then the next night there’s action plays, with sword fights and piano playing and dancing. It’s a safe place in the world for weirdos, for the strange folk the world doesn’t know what to do with.”

  “It sounds made-up to me,” says Tommy.

  “It ain’t made-up. I swear.”

  “You seen it yourself?”

  “Nope. But I heard stories. All kinds of stories. Not from any liar either. I promise on my heart.” I lean in real close to him and whisper it in his ear, my eyes wide with the promise of it all. “Guess who isn’t allowed in Moon Haven?”

  “Who?”

  “The Preacher,” I say. “He can’t even set foot in it. We’ll be safe there, Tommy.”

  “The Half-Moon Inn have a post office?” says Tommy. “So I can write to Aunt Barbara?”

  My heart snaps a little bit with that. Tommy still has a person out there, still has some of his own blood. A family. That’s okay, though. He’ll need a place to go when I find Gruff. No way I’ll be dragging Tommy along on me and Gruff’s adventures. That’ll be just us. It’ll be good for Tommy to have a place to go after all this.

  Tommy points over to a mess of trees and brush.

  “You see that?” says Tommy.

  He walks into the brush. The trees and vines are thick but Tommy pushes them back and away, following a little stone trail. And there it is, under a great big oak tree. A lone burned-black brick column, a chimney, stuck up like a bent finger from the grass. And right next to it is an upright piano. It’s got vines wrapped around it, what looks like a bird’s nest on top. Wildflowers bloom in purples and reds and golds surrounding it. The keys are brown and cracked, the wood all crawled on by bugs and spiders. It looks haunted.

  Tommy walks right up to it, not scared a bit. “You think it works?”

  “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” I say.

  “Why? What could happen?”

  A lot could happen, I think. I’ve read stories, I’ve heard Gruff and his boys talk around the campfire. These woods are full of bad magic. A bird could fly out. A spell could be broken. Trolls could come ambling from the forest. The piano might burst into flames. You might start playing and never be able to stop and have to play for forever until you’re dead.

  He reaches to press a key. I shut my eyes tight.

  The note bounds eerily through the forest. It’s quivery, not quite right, but rich and full as an old bird’s call.

  “It’s a little out of tune,” he says. “But it works.”

  Tommy begins to play. I never seen anything like it. His fingers dance across the keys, and the music that comes out is strong and fast and joyful, bellowing out like old Leebo used to do around the campfire. It’s the bright sad music, my favorite kind, the whirling sort that picks your whole heart up like in a tornado and swirls it across the countryside.

  Tommy strikes a key and half of it breaks right off into the grass.

  “This one’s busted,” he says, and bites his lip. Then he does something wonderful. Slowly, humming to himself, Tommy plucks out a few notes that I know. It takes him a couple of tries, but then he gets it just right. The nothingsong, the one Momma taught me.

  “How did you learn to play that?” I say.

  “I dunno,” says Tommy. “It’s just that song you’re always singing. You know, it’s simple. Nice. I kind of like it.”

  “Play it again for me, please,” I say.

  He does. It’s the loveliest way I’ve heard it since Momma died.

  “Thanks, Tommy. I didn’t know you could play.”

  He smiles at me.

  “My daddy taught me,” he says. “He was a good guy.”

  “I never knew my daddy,” I say. “I don’t even know what he looks like, or if he’s alive or dead or anything at all.”

  “My daddy got sick and died. He was always getting sick, but he was a good guy. Me and Momma loved him.”

  “I thought you said he was a wrestler who fought riverboat captains.”

  “That’s what I told all the kids in town. Really though he was a musician. He played piano. That’s what he taught me, before he died.”

  I feel a little shiver of wind, a strange and cold breeze. It’ll be getting dark soon. I’m already tired from all the walking.

  “I don’t think we should camp here,” I say. “I think it’s where a house burned down.”

  “How did the piano survive?” he says.

  “I don’t know, Tommy. But I don’t think it’s ours to find out.”

  He just nods at me, like he knows. We get to walking again, quiet this time, like we’re trespassing, wandering through some dark stranger’s woods and we don’t want to get caught. The shadows from the trees feel cool, like this part of the woods is grayer, with less light, the spot of some sad mystery. The Preacher is out the
re somewhere, hunting us. We walk faster.

  Soon me and Tommy come to a circle of trees. The circle was planted on purpose, like three hundred years ago somebody planted these trees for a reason, like it means something. But the feeling in them is good, like the people who planted them were good, like maybe we are part of the reason they planted them, somewhere in their hearts maybe they knew. An owl flies by overhead, big as the moon. The night is warm, and me and Tommy lie down together.

  Soon he gets to dreaming, moaning softly in his sleep. I brush his hair, hush him, sing him a song. I wish Gruff were here. He always told me stories at night when I was afraid. Stories about things he’d seen in his travels, about a tattooed sailor whose skin knife blades couldn’t cut, or strange maidens that lived in the woods and had one long tooth in their mouths to suck blood with. Or haints condemned to wander the forest, peeking into kids’ windows at night, searching for the men who killed them. All Gruff’s stories were scary, but they made me feel braver somehow, like if Gruff had faced these dangers and survived, then maybe I could too.

  Soon I’ll be back with him, when I make it to the Half-Moon Inn, when I’ve fought my way back to him. Just a few more days. Just a few more and we’ll be back together again.

  ELEVEN

  When I wake up I’m so hungry I feel like my stomach’s been empty for days. It hurts bad, like I spent all night getting kicked in the guts. Even with Gruff and his boys, I never went so long on just a handful of blackberries from the day before, same as I’ve never been so far from Templeton, so far from my own woods as I am right now.