It Is Said (Mathias Bootmaker and the Keepers of the Sandbox) (10 page)

“We should go,” Mouse said. “We should leave.”

 
Scary places can make you suspicious. Even of your friends. So Mathias decided to question Mouse.

“I arrived at a place called Sandbox Harbor this morning,” he began. “I’m still here, but this is not the same place. I fell asleep in my bed, and woke up falling out of a tree. That’s how I arrived here. In the clearing, before you appeared, I heard a door open and close. Mouse,” he continued, “how did you get here?”

The boy looked like he was going to answer the question, when he turned his head to his left. He was looking at something. Something or someone was out there with him. Mouse stepped out of the doorway and out of his line of sight.

In the time that it took Mathias to reach the doorway, Mouse had made his way back to the square. He was standing in front of the dry fountain. He was looking in the direction of the path at the edge of the village. Mathias walked slowly towards the boy and stood next to him.

“Mouse,” he said gently, “do you know this place?”

The boy looked up at him. His eyes were open wide, but there was no hint of fear in them. Mathias envied him.

“Yes,” was all he said.

Mouse turned back towards the road. He was looking deep down the dark path.

“What is it?” Mathias asked as he tried to see what the boy was seeing.

Mouse cocked his head a bit. He wasn’t looking. He was listening.

“What’s happening?” Mathias asked as he tried to hear what the boy was hearing.

They stood silently together, there in the square. Then there was a sound that sounded like a heartbeat. Mathias was sure it was his. Then he heard what the boy heard. Hoof beats. Faint. Distant. Getting louder. Coming faster.

Mathias felt the boy's hand slip into his.

“Run,” Mouse said quietly as he pulled at Mathias’ hand.

Mathias was looking but could see nothing. He pulled the boy closer. Mouse pushed back.

“Run,” he insisted.

Mathias gripped at the boy's vest and shirt to hold him while he looked for the rider, and his speeding horse. The hoof beats were getting much louder. Loud enough that they should both be seen by now he thought.

“Run!” Mouse screamed as he broke free.

The boy was very fast. He was almost at the tree line at the edge of the village in just a little bit more than a blink.

“Mouse! Wait!” Mathias shouted after him.

 
Mathias was surprised to find that he was fast too. He was on the heels of the boy in just a little bit less than a blink.

   
Without any warning, the rider and the horse were suddenly upon them both.

    
Mathias felt the first blow to the back of his head. He had his hands on the boy's shoulders when the second one came. The
rider threw the full bulk of his enormous black horse at Mathias and drove him to the ground. As he fell, he brought Mouse down with him.

The boy raced on all fours along the ground while the horse rode over and past him. The rider turned his mount and reached down for the child. Mathias was trying to stand when the rider appeared directly in front of him. It was impossible, but the rider was in two places at once. He spun around and kicked Mathias square in the chest while, at the same time, pulling Mouse up and over his saddle.

The force of the kick was unmatched by the impact of his body against the ground as Mathias dropped hard. The rider and horse jumped over him, and rode off down the dark path with the boy. The sound of hoof beats drifted after them, until they were faint, distant, and faded away.

The town square was quiet again.

Mathias could hear only the crackle of the torch fires. He slowly started to move, adjusting his movements with each sharp pain as he stood himself up. Around him everything was still. It was as if the violence that had just occurred had never happened. There was no boy. There was no rider. At least as far as this place was concerned.

Mathias was being watched. He could feel it.

He was not alone in the square.

Something moved behind him. He heard it. He caught a glimpse of a shadow turning the corner of one of the shops.

Something, or someone was moving slowly around a set of barrels to his right.

The wind was moving the fabric of a figure that was hiding behind a chimney stack, above the building to his left.

There were people in the dark places all around him.

Curtains were moving in windows. Shutters were creaking open, just enough to sneak a peek. Mathias could hear whispers. This ghost town had found its spirits and they were restless.

From somewhere there was a whistle.

A rock struck him on the shoulder.

“Go away,” came a voice from behind the chimney stack.
 

Another rock struck him on the side of his head. The impact and the pain made him drop to his knees. Realizing he was in danger, he quickly stumbled back to his feet.

As he was trying to push away the pain, Mathias could see several people moving about. They began extinguishing the torches in the square. By the last lit torch, stood a woman. She was cleverly positioned so that the firelight obscured her face from Mathias’ view. His only clue to her gender was her voice.

“Please go,” she said as she pointed behind Mathias. “Go now.”

With that she threw a thick black cloth over the fire, and she and it melted into the darkness. A torch lit behind Mathias. As he turned a male voice called to him.

 
“Leave here,” the man said, as he pointed down the dark road. “Go and never come back.”

His declaration was followed by more whispers. They were growing louder with each step Mathias took towards the road. They followed him as he got closer to the man, and the last bit of light Mathias knew he would see for quite some time. They were clear in their intent by the time he reached him.

“Get out,” was whispered in quiet unison.

Mathias caught only a quick glimpse of the man at the torch before he smothered his flame with a cloth. His eyes were a deep grey. His skin was pale, on the verge of translucent. Mathias couldn’t see anything of the man anymore, but he could feel his presence coming closer to him through the dark.

His voice was suddenly behind him.

“Never return to the village,” he whispered. “Stick to the path. Stray from it and you’ll regret it.”

“I already have,” Mathias said, “and I already do.”

Mathias felt the man’s hands on his shoulders turning him to the face the road.

“No matter which choice you make remember, always hide, always run.”

The man put his hand against his back and pushed Mathias forward into the nothingness as the whispers became voices. At first there were just a few, then a few dozen more. As those voices became clearer, Mathias began his journey onto the dark path ahead of him.

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.