Читать книгу Blackfire - James Daniel Eckblad - Страница 8

When morning broke, it made very little difference either inside or outside Thorn’s home. The sun had been rising for several hours, but since it was not yet nearly overhead, the large clearing around the immense tree in which the five had been sleeping had the appearance of dusk. Though it was becoming slowly and steadily lighter, it was nevertheless impossible for anyone to see more than three or four feet into the surrounding forest.

Inside the tree, it was the darkest it had yet been because Thorn had let the fire die down to dusty flickering embers. Thorn awoke well before the children had even begun to stir into consciousness, lit various lamps hanging on the wall, and pulled out a preparation table from one of the tall cabinets. He then put coffee on to simmer over the fireplace coals and cut up some bread and fruit.

It was actually the smell of the coffee simmering that awakened the children, one by one. And while none of them actually liked coffee, the smell comforted them with the familiarity of home.

The children rose and took nourishment with Thorn by the low fire, even to the point of drinking the sweetened coffee and actually enjoying its taste and warmth. No one had yet said anything, as if the meal was meant to be eaten that way—in meditative silence.

When all had finished, Thorn addressed them. “In a few minutes we shall set out. As I said last night, regardless of where you expect your journey to take you, you will, in any event, have to leave the forest first, and there is only one—that is to say, one safe—way. And that is underneath the forest, following the main root from this tree to where it emerges from the ground many miles from here. There is a narrow tunnel which the Dactyls excavated a long time ago that follows alongside the main root. However, I will need to lead you, since there are numerous other tunnels made for various purposes by a variety of creatures, including some into which the main tunnel divides or that break off from it. There are also tunnels that ground waters have created that would confound you, sending you easily and truly—and literally—to a dead end, with no hope of ever being found.

“We will each of us carry in our rucksacks water, fruit, and dried sweet bread, as well as a skin for warmth when we need to rest or sleep.”

“How long will it take us, Thorn?” asked Jamie.

“If we make good time and not encounter any, shall we say, ‘interferences,’ we can make it in three to four days. We will carry no torches for light, since the air is scant as it is simply for breathing. You will feel as if you are climbing up high into some mountains instead of descending deep into the earth as the air becomes increasingly thin and you tire more easily.

“We will, however,” Thorn said, with a note of the fortuitous, “have the light of my eyes to guide us. Indeed, just as you will be able to see my eyes when they are open, so I will be able to see what lies some several feet ahead of me, my eyes casting a dim light upon our path whenever I open them. However, just as you will be able to see my eyes when they are open, so, too, will other creatures that may be hidden in the dark beyond the reach of my glow.

“I will have Beatríz follow immediately behind me. Her keen sense of hearing that I noticed when you first arrived may assist us most valuably during our journey. I will have a rope tied about my waist, and each of you will take hold of it, one after the other. And, by all means,” Thorn said, as if this was the most critical instruction of them all, “do not under any circumstances let go of the rope. You may never find it again—or the rest of us you.”

Having finished his instructions, Thorn doused the coals with water, blew out the wall lamps and led them in the dark across the floor with his glowing eyes to the other of the two cabinets. He then moved the cabinet aside and, with his thin fingers pressed into several small holes in the wall, pulled out and slid to the side on a hidden track a small door, not unlike the door of an airliner. Thorn reached into the pitch black opening and took out a rather long thick rope with a loop to go around the leader’s waist and a number of knots along the length of the rope against which those following could rest their grips.

With each one in place along the length of the rope, beginning with Thorn and ending with Elli, Thorn slid the door shut, enveloping the children once again in that darkness that had become all too familiar a traveling companion since they had first descended the library’s basement stairs a few days earlier.

The tunnel that, at the beginning, was little higher than eight feet, would never reach that height again during the course of their journey underground. At times, they would find it considerably smaller. Thorn, who was himself nearly eight feet tall, would have to travel most of the way bent forward at the waist as much as ninety degrees, looking as if he were the feeblest of old men. Beatríz thought the tunnel, in general, had the odor of dry black dirt. There were times, however, as they passed by unseen passageways off of the main tunnel, when the odor reminded Alex of those times when he would dig in the moist nocturnal grass for large worms that would surface only when the sun had set. The ground descended gradually with firm, packed earth, as if it had—as, indeed it had—been traveled for hundreds of years by thousands and thousands of creature feet.

Like a slow-rolling and soundless train, the four “cars” that were the children and the “engine” that was Thorn with two eyes for “headlamps” that appeared to be low on their batteries, moved steadily through the tunnel. Every once in a while Thorn would slow to a stop, examining with a wagging glow a fork in the tunnel or something amounting to a T intersection to determine down which tunnel the main track was running. It was not at all clear to the children how deep underground they had traveled, or were going to travel, but they had been descending silently for hours, and each was becoming short of breath. Thorn heard their rapid and shallow breathing and halted the train.

“Let’s rest for a few minutes and then continue; there will be a multiple passageway intersection not far up ahead that will give us a sufficient area on which to stretch out and sleep for a few hours. It’s another hour ahead, and it will be time to stop for the night anyway. By then we should have logged a good eight hours—plenty for our first day, I’d say. You’ll need to sleep double that time in this thin air to recoup your stamina, but I will keep watch. Unlike you human persons, I need very little sleep.”

They sat and ate some fruit. While eating and drinking, Alex’s breathing was getting faster and louder. He was beginning to wheeze and then starting to cry. Elli told him to relax and keep quiet—that his fast breathing and crying would only make it harder to breath. But Alex only breathed faster and cried louder.

“I can’t bweeth! I can’t bweeth!” Alex tried to shout in a panicked voice.

“Try your best to relax, Alex,” Thorn said while laying a reassuring hand on Alex’s knee. “You’re panicking and hyperventilating and, as Elli said, only making it more difficult for yourself. And,” he added, “if there is anything else in this tunnel within half a mile, it will now know that we are here.”

Alex suddenly stood up, hitting his head against the roof of the tunnel, and began to jump in place, yelling as loudly as he was able under the circumstances, “I can’t bweeth! I can’t bweeth! I have to go back! I have to get out of hew! I do! I do!”

“Alex!” Jamie yelled. “You have to stop! Sit down! You’re making things worse for everyone!”

But Alex only continued to yell the more, in a harsh, tight and aspirating voice, “I have to get out of hew!” Then, all of a sudden, he started to run back into the tunnel from which they’d come.

“Alex, stop!” yelled Thorn.

Elli wasted no time to think. She jumped to her feet and ran as fast as her (rather fast) legs would carry her while bent at the waist. “I’ll get him!” yelled Elli.

“Don’t go, Elli!” Thorn shouted. “You’ll both get lost!”

But Elli caught up to Alex quickly and tackled him at the legs, bringing him down with a thud and holding tightly onto his ankles. “Stop, Alex!” Elli screamed at him.

“Ewi,” Alex cried weakly, with no air behind the voice, “pweez wet me go!”

“Thorn!” Elli yelled, in a composed voice, “I have him, but I need help to bring him back!”

Alex had no energy remaining either to run or to resist. Thorn and Jamie helped carry Alex back to where Beatríz had remained alone. They laid him on a skin, gave him some tea that Thorn had packed in a bottle, and let him in his utter exhaustion drift from semi-consciousness into a deep sleep.

“We’ll simply try to rest here,” said Thorn, quietly, “until Alex awakens on his own. If he is still intent on going back, we will acquiesce. At least, that’s what we will tell him. If I must, I will tell him we are returning, but we will nevertheless continue our journey out of the forest. If lying is the most loving thing I can do, then lie I will. I don’t know if anyone or anything has heard us, but the sooner we can continue the better.”

All but Thorn fell asleep. Unbeknownst to them, they slept more than a dozen hours, each of them awakening at roughly the same time, feeling rested and eager to be on their way, including Alex. No one said anything to Alex about what had happened a half day earlier, and Alex himself said nothing, behaving as if he didn’t recall the incident at all. They resumed their journey in the darkness, only Thorn able to see just an arm’s length or so in front of them. Within what seemed only minutes, the five had arrived at the open space created by the intersection of several passageways. Thorn stopped to ascertain which way was for certain the correct one. He bore into the sides of the various tunnels with a single finger, feeling for what he believed to be the side of the main root. He was able to feel a root alongside two of the tunnels, but his sense was that neither was the main one. “We’ll go off to the far right; it’s the passage that has the hardest-packed earth. Ready?” All answered in the affirmative.

They continued their shallow descent, and within a short time found the tunnel widening and increasing in height. Thorn stopped abruptly, closed his eyes, and said to the others in the lightest of whispers, “No noise from anyone.”

Elli reached around and gently touched Alex’s lips. “Shhh.” They stood still for several minutes, Thorn listening intently and the children awaiting further instructions. Thorn could feel a slight vibration in the earth beneath his feet.

Beatríz tapped Thorn on the shoulder and whispered, her lips touching the side of his head, “I hear a light clicking noise in the distance, Thorn, and it’s getting closer.”

As if he immediately understood the implications of what Beatríz had told him, Thorn whispered to the others, “Go back, Elli, and take the first passage to the left that you come to. It’s probably going to be pretty small, so you’ll likely have to crawl to get into it. Go in as far as you can until I tell you to stop—but back in! Remember to back in! I’ll be right behind you! Let’s go, quickly!”

Suddenly, all of them could hear the rapid clicking, as of a hundred drumsticks drumming lightly on a board, and getting rapidly louder. “Quickly, everyone! Quickly!” yelled Thorn, realizing they had already been discovered by what was fast approaching from up ahead. Elli, holding firmly to the rope, challenged the others with her speed and agility. She found the low passageway within a matter of seconds and crawled in backwards on all fours, all the while pulling on the rope to assist the others until she heard Thorn yell, “I’m in! You can stop! We’re okay for the time being.”

After they had all caught their breath, Jamie asked Thorn, “What is it?”

“From that awful drumming sound, I can tell that it’s a Mortejos. We call it simply, a ‘Death Eyes.’ It is a giant millipede that has hundreds of bony legs and crawls low to the ground, almost on its stomach,” explained Thorn. “When standing, it is more than four feet high, as well as being about ten feet long, but even on its stomach it’s nearly three feet high, so it won’t be able to follow us into this passageway—which is important, because it’s almost here!” Thorn paused, and caught his breath. “On the other hand . . . ”

Thorn was interrupted, first by the rushing sound of the millipede’s legs clicking in their joints in their inexorable march toward them and, then, by the appearance in the glow from Thorn’s eyes of the creature’s hissing mouth and bared teeth at the passage opening. Thorn instructed everyone to remain still and not talk. Then, after about ten minutes, the creature left the opening and retreated back up the tunnel a short distance before stopping.

“As I was attempting to say earlier,” Thorn said, sounding relieved, “the Death Eyes will simply wait us out, even if it takes weeks, which, of course, we do not have. We can perhaps get by with the provisions we have for two or three more days, not including the remaining time it will take to emerge from the tunnel, but that’s as long as we have, especially with the water which remains. What I’m saying, unfortunately, dear friends, is that we either remain here and die or we somehow face the creature by executing the best plan we can to improve our odds against it.”

A long silence ensued.

“Thorn,” asked Elli, “why do you call the Mortejos ‘Death Eyes?’”

“Because,” answered Thorn, “it captures its prey by first hypnotizing it into paralysis. Once another creature of any sort looks into the Mortejos’s eyes that creature becomes instantly immobilized. Then, the Death Eyes merely has to walk up to its prey and bite off its head.”

“But, what if a creature doesn’t look at the eyes, Thorn?” asked Jamie.

“It never happens. You simply cannot face the creature without looking into its eyes—they are the only thing you can see of the creature in the dark—and it takes only a fraction of a moment to be frozen in place.”

All became still again, each one pondering the nearly impossible jam they were in, while the creature patiently awaited its opportunity for a substantial meal. Finally, Thorn said, “I have a plan, and I think it will work. Elli, you will tie the rope around your waist and the rest of you will take hold behind her, beginning with Beatríz and ending with Jamie. At the moment I determine best, I will slip out of the tunnel and run back toward my home. The Mortejos will immediately come running after me. I can run fast, so I may be able, with my speed and eyesight, to elude the creature for sometime before I have to dive into a side tunnel to hide, expecting then that the creature will continue to run past me.

“As soon as the Death Eyes pursues me, you, Elli, will lead the others out of the tunnel and turn to the right, continuing the journey as quickly as you can. If you hurry, you can make it almost immediately to the multiple-tunnel intersection where you will take the second tunnel to your right, which will be too small for the creature to follow you into. Once in that tunnel, you can continue until you rejoin the main root tunnel in some three hundred yards. By that time, the creature will have learned of your escape, but frustrated because it cannot pursue you any longer, it will go back to its customary place of rest. Once back in the main tunnel you will be starting to ascend. Just continue to stay on the packed earth tunnel that ascends, and you will find yourselves emerging from underground within another day or so. The air will continue to thicken and enrich itself, so you will have more energy and be able to make better time. I can’t guarantee that you won’t encounter any other obstacles along the way, but this is your best chance. I will try to join you before you’ve gotten far, but that depends on how long it takes for the Mortejos to get beyond me.”

Thorn paused to catch his breath and steel his mind, while focusing on the softening of his heart that he hadn’t experienced in many years. He knew that his death at the jaws of the Mortejos was virtually inescapable, and perhaps even imminent, but he also knew that these four children whom he had already come to love had only this opportunity to live and, perhaps, complete their mission that quite likely was the last hope of his beloved Bairnmoor. “So,” Thorn said, with an almost cold resolve, “time taken is time wasted. Elli, ready your companions. As soon as I leave and you hear the Mortejos running by the tunnel after me, leave the tunnel immediately and run as fast as you can in the other direction, saying nothing to each other and, of course, not letting go of the rope.” Thorn rummaged quickly in his rucksack. “Here, Elli, take this torch and some matches; but do not make any light until you have reached the next tunnel to your right.”

Thorn, crouched on all fours, moved next to the passage opening. He turned to look one last time into the children’s eyes and then braced himself for a dash.

“Wait! Wait!” yelled Beatríz. Thorn had started out the tunnel, and then stopped, pulling his head back in.

“Beatríz,” said Thorn, firmly, “there is no other way.”

“But, there is—I’m quite sure of it, Thorn. And if I’m right, then you won’t have to die to save us—and we all know that that’s what’s going to happen if you leave us. And we need you! And I really believe there is another way. Please, just hear me out!” Beatríz pleaded. Without waiting for Thorn’s answer, she continued. “You said the Death Eyes paralyzes its prey so that it’s in no hurry to kill it, correct?”

“Yes,” said Thorn.

“Well, what if I confronted the creature just outside the tunnel and pretended immediately upon looking toward him that I was paralyzed in place? I would already have my knife held above my head when I turned to face the creature. You would tell me when I’m directly facing the creature. Once frozen there, I will simply wait for the Mortejos to come to me. As soon as his head in within reach, you will yell, ‘Now!’ And I will then plunge the knife into its head—that would kill the creature, wouldn’t it—or at least severely injure it?” Beatríz could hardly believe it was she who had just spoken.

The other children looked into Thorn’s slowly blinking eyes, waiting for his response, not knowing either what he would think or what they were to think about the alternate plan.

“Yes, it would.” Thorn said. “But, Beatríz, if you would move yourself the least little bit once you pretended to be paralyzed, the Death Eyes would rapidly fall upon you and kill you. There would not likely be time for us to help you. Do you understand this?”

“Yes,” said Beatríz, “I do, and I still think it’s the best plan if there is any hope at all for all of us to survive.”

“But, Butweece,” said Alex, almost weeping, “ahnt you afwade?”

“Yes, Alex, I am afraid—more afraid than I had ever imagined being afraid. But we are here on this journey for a reason, and this Good that Hannah and Peterwinkle talk about must want us to succeed, so we have to trust in that—I have to trust in that.”

Reluctantly, filled with fear and sadness and unspoken incredulity, they adopted Beatríz’s plan to fool the Mortejos into believing it had paralyzed Beatríz and so meet its death at her hands.

“But,” asked Alex, “what if it doesn’t wook? What if it doesn’t wook?”

“It will, Alex. It has to,” answered Beatríz.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Beatríz?” asked Thorn, offering a final chance for her to withdraw. “You don’t have to do this, Beatríz.”

“Mr. Thorn, I really don’t want to do this.” She gulped softly. “But, I believe I am supposed to do this—that someone or something has called me to do this, Mr. Thorn, and so I know that I have to.”

Each of the others, with unseen tears in their eyes, laid a gentle hand on Beatríz’s shoulders.

“Are you ready?” asked Thorn.

“I don’t know how to be ready, Thorn, and, even if I did, I don’t think I ever would be, so let’s just get on with it,” Beatríz replied, feeling strangely detached, as if she were more a spectator to what she was about to do.

“Do you have your knife out, Beatríz?” Thorn asked. She fumbled behind her back.

“I do now,” she said.

“Beatríz! Remember what Hannah said—about the knife and its extraordinary powers!” whispered Jamie, sharply.

“Yes,” Beatríz remembered. “In the will of the Good,” she said to the knife.

“As soon as you exit the tunnel, Beatríz, stand up with your knife held fully aloft and ready to strike. Then, start turning to your right. I will yell ‘stop!’ when you are facing the Mortejos. At that moment, with your eyes open, freeze, and do not move—or even flinch. You should, within a few moments, hear the creature creeping slowly toward you. It will sound like it’s moving faster than it is because of its many legs, but it will advance casually, unless it receives signals that you are not paralyzed. As soon as it is within striking distance, Beatríz, I will yell, ‘now!’ Then, strike down in front of you with all your might. Do you think you have it?” asked Thorn.

“Yes,” said Beatríz, under her breath, as if she were in the middle of praying—which she was, but to whom or what she could not have said.

“Okay, on three,” ordered Thorn. “One, two, three!”

So much was her adrenaline rushing that Beatríz shot out of the tunnel like out of a gun. She immediately stood up, her knife held aloft, and began turning to face the Death Eyes. Already everyone could hear the creature stirring, with grunting and a random clicking of legs, as if it were awakening suddenly from sleep, followed by a shrill hissing of both surprise and anger.

“Stop!” shouted Thorn. Beatríz froze herself in place, facing the enemy with her eyes wide open—and struggling to not tremble. There was an interminable moment of silence when the Mortejos must have been staring straight into Beatríz’s eyes. Then, she heard the din of the millipede’s woody legs clicking and clacking with a regularity that told her it was advancing toward her.

Suddenly, when the Mortejos was a mere ten feet away, Beatríz started to tremble, and the creature, its mouth wide open and baring dozens of thin sharp teeth, rushed at Beatríz! Immediately, a horrified Thorn screamed, “Now!”—hoping against hope that Beatríz would hit the Mortejos before the creature hit her.

At the same time that Beatríz’s arm struck downward, the creature planted its teeth into her abdomen while Thorn dove at the creature with his knife. Beatríz fell fast and hard on her back, the creature’s mouth clamped to Beatríz’s body and its own body lying lifeless, the knife belonging to Beatríz plunged deep into one of the creature’s awful eyes. Finding the Mortejos dead, Thorn pried its jaws away from Beatríz’s belly. She also seemed to be lifeless, and Thorn began to sob. The others had by this time scrambled out from the tunnel and, in the eerie light of Thorn’s eyes, knelt around Beatríz, touching her head and hands, whimpering, and saying, “No, Beatríz! No! No!”

Thorn gained his composure quickly and began to examine the wounds to Beatríz’s abdomen, finding to his surprise that her stomach was only badly scratched, the jaws of the Death Eyes having progressed no further than the depth of Beatríz’s leather skirt. “She may be alive! She may still be alive!” yelled Thorn, with unrestrained hope. “The jaws never entered her stomach—just her clothing! She killed it at the last possible moment, and she’s unconscious, but the Mortejos could not have killed her, at least not by biting her,” Thorn continued, while he checked her pulse and breathing.

Thorn could find no pulse, so he put his face under Beatríz’s nose to learn if she was breathing. All waited quietly for the verdict, staring at Beatríz’s inert body in the soft glow enveloping her. “She’s breathing!” yelled Thorn. “Not much, but she’s definitely breathing. Jamie,” ordered Thorn, “cradle her head in your lap and pat her cheeks lightly. Elli, Alex, gently pat her hands; I’ll get some water.”

Thorn returned quickly from the side tunnel with a leather pouch and began sprinkling drops about Beatríz’s face. The four of them continued their various tasks for more than an hour. Beatríz was still breathing, ever so barely, but there was no discernible movement in any part of her body.

“C’mon, Beatríz!” Jamie said, encouragingly.

“Please, Beatríz!” pleaded Elli.

“Pweez don’t be dead, Butweece!” said Alex, with a softly sobbing voice. “Pweez!”

A short while later Thorn checked Beatríz’s breathing again, but this time discerned nothing. He was about to say to the others that it was time to stop, when, like an eruption, Beatríz sat up, just missing hitting Jamie’s head that was bent over hers. She coughed deeply and then screamed, “Elli! Elli!” and reached into the bluish darkness for Elli’s face.

“Beatríz, I’m right here! Here!” exclaimed Elli, as she placed Beatríz’s hand on her face for Beatríz to see that it was true. Beatríz embraced Elli and began to cry—Elli held her for several minutes, saying nothing.

Her head once again cradled in Jamie’s lap, Beatríz asked quietly, “What happened? Where is the Mortejos?”

Thorn smiled. “You killed it, Beatríz! You killed it, just as you had planned. Its body is right here—and quite dead, I can assure you.”

“I killed it?” Beatríz asked again, with more of a statement than a question.

“Yes,” said Thorn, his voice soft and reassuring—and punctuated with celebratory chuckles.

“But . . . but how did that happen?” Beatríz asked, in disbelief. “The only thing I remember is all of us in the tunnel and my suggesting I confront the Mortejos.”

Elli laughed and said to Beatríz, “You did just that, Beatríz, just as you and Thorn planned it—and so bravely, too! And you saved all of our lives!” Elli squeezed one of Beatríz’s hands with both of her own and gave her a kiss on the cheek. All four of Beatríz’s companions beamed smiles of gratitude and pride.

Then, after what seemed like a grand ceremonial pause, Thorn spoke. “We must begin moving again as soon as we can. Who knows what else has heard the commotion that will not be kindly disposed toward us. Beatríz, how are you feeling? Can you move, even if only slowly and with assistance?”

“Actually, other than a bit of a headache and a sore stomach, I think I’m fine. If we need to move, then I’m all for it.”

“Okay. Get your things and follow me—just as we were before this business with the Mortejos began.”

Thorn was in the lead, his eyes now popped entirely out of their sockets for maximum light. They had walked for perhaps ten minutes when they heard in the distance behind them a distinctive sound, as of many pieces of wood breaking apart. Thorn stopped. “This is good,” he said. “It means that other creatures who might otherwise be chasing after us are, instead, eating the Mortejos. By the time they’re finished with it, we will be much too far from them to worry about.”

The five continued at a relaxed, but productive, pace. They soon arrived at the T intersection and turned to the right. And, as Thorn had informed them earlier, the tunnel began gradually to ascend and the air began to thicken, making it easier for them to breathe and move with less effort.

After traveling for nearly eight hours following Beatríz’s victory over the Death Eyes, and with only a few brief stops to rest, they found another significant widening of the tunnel where they could sleep for the night. Thorn, however, who needed very little sleep and who could remain alert at will for days on end, once again said that he’d keep watch. But before allowing the children to crawl into their skins, Thorn made sure there was a small tunnel opening nearby into which all of them could crawl in the event of their need for a fast escape.

The four children slept soundly for nearly sixteen hours while Thorn remained alert, but with his eyes closed—opening only occasionally to check on things. Thorn then awakened them and, once all had eaten some breakfast, they continued on what was supposed to be the final leg of their journey through the forest underground. Indeed, it was about eight hours following breakfast that they ascended more sharply toward the world above and began to hear muffled noises and feel vibrations beneath their feet. Within two to three hours of reaching close to the surface, all heard the slight, but distinct and chilling, sound of the Thrashers clearing trees just above them. They paused and then moved on. Once they had left the sound of the Thrashers behind them, there was only the sound of their boots treading softly on the compacted earth and their breathing to disturb the otherwise complete silence.

Then, abruptly, Thorn stopped and sat down, bidding the others to do so as well. “This is where I leave you, my dear friends.”

“But,” interjected Alex, “we ah stiw in the tunnow.”

“The tunnel ends after another fifty yards, and you will find yourselves outside the forest. I’ll see to it that you get to the opening. From there I do not know which way you are to go, because I do not know your destinations, either intermediate or ultimate. What I can tell you is that you will be on the eastern side of the forest.”

As she began to feel the reality of their impending separation, Elli asked, sadly, “What will we find outside the tunnel, Thorn?”

“I don’t really know, Elli. I haven’t been outside the tunnel at the eastern edge, or otherwise within sight of that part of the forest, for many decades,” Thorn said pensively. “And the last time I was outside the tunnel, it was still the forest. But apparently it hasn’t been forest for more than a century now at tunnel’s end, or so I’ve learned from others.”

All five of them simply sat, their shoulders slung forward and their eyes staring wide open into the darkness ahead, tears in every one of the children’s eyes sparkling from the two lightly glowing lanterns which were now fully retracted into Thorn’s head.

“Thorn,” Elli asked, forlornly, “can’t you please come with us?”

“I can, but I may not.”

“Why may you not, Thorn?” asked Elli.

“Because I have fulfilled my mission given to me by Hannah, and I am not charged or called to do anything further on your behalf,” Thorn replied.

“But can’t you come anyway? You don’t have to be part of our mission, or even know any more about it than you know now. Just help us for a little while longer, simply as a friend,” Elli pleaded. “We need you. And, and . . . we all love you, Thorn.” The others nodded fiercely in assent.

“Only one person could enable me to continue with you,” said Thorn, in a tone that indicated resignation to the impossible.

“And who’s that?” asked Jamie.

“Only the one with the key, Jamie—the one for whom we have been waiting for centuries to free us. But, it’s just a story now—a sacred one perhaps, but, still, just a story. It leaves us with something to hope for—and maybe in.” He paused and then concluded, “Perhaps something to hope we can hope in one day.”

All became quiet, and the other three children were staring at Elli. Elli fingered the key through her shirt. Finally, she broke the heavy silence.

“Thorn?”

“Yes, Elli,” he replied, happy to delay, if only for a moment, their parting that would perhaps be forever.

Elli unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt and lifted the key to her neck for Thorn to view. “Thorn, it’s certainly not the one you are looking for, but I have a key. It’s just an old library door key from the world my friends and I come from.” She then added, “Still, it is a key.”

Thorn glanced at Elli with moist eyes. And then, like a couple of jack-in-the-boxes, Thorn’s eyes popped out of his head with a kind of cork-popping sound. His tiny mouth dropped open as far as it could drop. “Oh, my!” Thorn said, as if he’d won a lottery. “Oh, my! Oh my! Oh my!”

“I don’t think this is the key that you are referring to, Thorn, but if you believe it is, will you now join us beyond the forest?” asked Elli, noticing a tone of authority in her voice.

Thorn continued to stare at the key. It was the exact likeness of the drawing of the legendary key that had been secretly passed among the Queen’s loyalists since her demise; the only exception was that . . . the key in the drawing was made of solid diamonds, and not of something entirely black, like the aged alloy of some sort of metal that this one seemed to be. But there was no mistaking the shape of the key. And those who were “people of the key,” who were loyalists to the Queen and to her reign of love, had a sign that they would give to each other to show their membership in this secret society of brothers and sisters of the Good. Two fingers would be held aloft, and then the arms would cross on the chest, with each palm resting on the opposite shoulder.

Thorn made the sign of the key. “Oh, Elli. You are, I believe, the one who is to release our land from the imprisonment of Evil, and at your command I will do as you bid.”

“Thorn,” replied Elli, humbly, “I, as you know, can tell you nothing about our mission. What I can tell you is that it is likely impossible to accomplish, even with your help. But,” she added, after a long pause, “if you will come with us, we would be very grateful for you to do so, even if it’s only for a little while longer.”

“Then, Elli,” pronounced Thorn, “it will be as you request. And I will continue to accompany you for as long as you want my services, even to the conclusion of your mission, regardless of what that might be.”

An abundance of smiles and tears of joy were shared all around.

“Elli,” said Thorn, with confidence and joy he could not recall having in a long while, “lead us out of the tunnel and into whatever we find ourselves.”