Escape

By the time Steven had finished his story, he was standing on one leg on top of a chair juggling three balls, a stone on the end of a leather thong, and a small shirt-shaped flag. Cherissé was mesmerized by the site and sat staring at the objects floating in the air with her mouth agape. Steven stepped off the chair while still juggling the odd assortment and approached Cherissé.

“Sleep, Cherissé,” he said calmly. Her eyelids fluttered closed and shortly there was a long and loud snore. Steven stared in amazement at the sleeping figure that no longer looked so beautiful, nor young, nor capable. Now he could see the missing teeth, the wrinkles around her eyes, and the long hooked nose. How had he thought this hag was so precious? It must have been the hit on the head, he thought. He quietly gathered his belongings and slipped out the door.

Steven was nearly to the gate of the hag’s house which now looked forlorn and rundown when he heard the soft honking of the geese. Something had bothered Steven about the docile flock of geese as he stood outside the pen watching the woman feed them. The combination of their honks all together sounded almost like voices. He was loathe to take away the woman’s livelihood if such they were, but he could not go without opening their pen.

One by one the geese filed out of the pen and as they crossed the threshold, each stood up in the form of a man until there were seven men standing with Steven.

“Thank you, lad,” said the eldest. “The hag laid an enchantment on us and we were kept as geese until she had need of one of us for the soup pot.” Steven gagged as he thought of the goose stew he had eaten with the beautiful young woman when he first woke up. He saw one last goose remaining in the pen.

“Why doesn’t he come out?” Steven asked.

“Oh,” said the man. “That one’s just a goose.”

Together the eight men silently left the hag’s yard and fled into the woods.

There was some dispute regarding which way they should go, and further dispute regarding whether they should go back and kill the hag. No one seemed anxious, however, to enter her grounds again. Steven sighted the moon and took off walking in what he assumed was a northerly direction. The other men fell in behind him in single file and they walked on through the night.

The men who had been geese became progressively more talkative as the night wore on and the felt they were further and further from the hag’s clutches. As they walked, they talked first one at a time, then all at once of their adventures.

“I ran away from home,” said the youngest. “I thought I knew the way to my grandmam’s house, but I got lost along the way. As I wandered weeping in the woods, I came upon a cottage, so nicely kept, with a kind motherly woman who dried my eyes and brought me into her house to feed me. Her voice was so soft and comforting and the food so delicious that I thought I would just stay with her a while. Before long, she had me working like a slave to fetch her water, fix her roof, tend her garden. Then one day she sent me to feed the geese. As soon as I entered the pen she slammed the door shut on me and said, ‘you’ve been a silly goose, now live like one,’ and there I stayed until you let me out.” The men generally agreed with the boy, but another spoke up.

“It was no kind motherly sort that captured my heart,” he said. He wore a rugged black beard and looked like he had been a burly man before he had been forced to eat a diet of grain and scraps. “I was sailing on the sea some leagues away when I heard a sweet and melodious voice singing over the water. I was not heedful of my craft and steered her toward the voice. Before long I was wrecked upon the rocks and near drowned. A nymph with honey hair saved me from the sea and nursed me back to health. I thought I’d never heard a lovelier voice. But from there my story is the same as the lad’s. I worked and slaved for her, just to hear the sound of her voice. Then one day she sent me to feed the geese, closed the door on me and told me that I’d been a silly goose, now I could live like one. I’ve been there ever since.”

“Aye.” “That’s right.” “I hear you,” chorused the other men.

“The lady was not blonde that enticed me away from the road,” said a man dressed as a merchant. “I was riding in my cart on a mission of trade from one village to the next. I saw a raven-haired gypsy girl pulling her own little cart it was stuck in the mud and I offered to help her, thinking we might find something to trade. She said she’d been separated from her caravan and asked so sweetly if I would help her get her cart to the camp. Once we found the wagon, where she had camped, she made me a savory stew and sang and danced so sweetly that I completely forgot about my business in the next village. She started by getting me to mend a wheel, paint her cart, and finally, she showed me a pen of geese and asked me to feed them. When she locked to door on me she said I was a silly goose and I should live with them. There I was the night you set us free.”

One man had been a wood-cutter, one drunk, and one a soldier. Each had come upon a golden-haired, or red headed, or brown haired beauty who had a voice so sweet that they would do anything to hear her speak again. They had labored for her a short while and then when she said to feed the geese, she’d locked them in her pen.

“I confess,” said the geezer, “I was a fool. I am old and my family is poor. I thought to myself that I would no longer be a burden to them and late one night while the family slept, I walked off into the woods thinking to find a quiet place to lie down and die. I found such a place and when I was near to death I heard an angel singing, calling me up out of my deathbed to join her in the heavens. She gave me a simple place and built my strength with an elixir. She had me do no work at all until the day she asked me to feed the geese for her. I walked into the pen and found myself as silly a goose as I had been.” The men all nodded.

“Now, our rescuer,” said the geezer, “how did you come to be in her clutches. Steven told the story of being knocked off the boat and caught in the current, then rescued from her nets according to the story that Cherissé had told him.

“But how did you get free of her seduction?” asked the geezer.

“Well,” said Steven, “we agreed to tell each other stories and when I had finished mine she had fallen asleep. In sleep I could see her for what she was. She was not the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, but the most ugly. And to hear her snore was a sure antidote to her sweet voice. When I left, I was moved to open the pen and let you out.”

“She fell asleep when you told a story, eh?” said the geezer.

“Yes,” said Steven. He did not bother to tell about the juggling balls that seemed to so captivate her.

“Must not be a very good storyteller,” the geezer snorted, and the men all laughed. The sound was almost like the honking of the geese they had been.

By mid-day the company came to a road and sat to eat some of the scraps that Steven still had in his pack. They had been a little waterlogged and then dried in front of the fire, but no one complained. As they sat, they talked about the direction in which they thought Rich Reach might lie.

At last, amidst a rising squabble, Steven looked at the men, remembered what Cherissé had said about the number of silly geese one meets along the road, and announced that he was going to the right. The old geezer then spoke to Steven.

“You figure that is the way to Rich Reach?” he asked.

“It is the road I will take to get there,” answered Steven. The geezer nodded sagely.

“Well, farewell, then,” he said. “We don’t want to go anywhere near that place. It’s haunted.” And with that the seven men who had been geese set off the opposite direction along the road.

Steven was relieved as he picked up his pack and headed in his chosen direction.

***

The afternoon passed in eerie silence as Steven trudged along the road he had chosen. He passed no one and there were few dwellings, all of which seemed abandoned and lifeless. He spent the night in the shelter of one and hurried on in the morning. Near midday, Steven saw a tiny leather flag in the shape of a shirt on a post. He wondered if he was entering or leaving the Kingdom of Arining.

About mid-afternoon, Steven came to a town larger than the abandoned hamlets he had ventured through thus far. There was a low stone arch marking the entry to the town and two or three stone buildings among the timber houses. But there was no one on the street of the town. Steven called out a “Haloo!” that echoed feebly down the empty street.

The well still worked and the water was sweet. There was stale bread still in the bakery, and dried meats at the butcher. There being no one in the town to ask, Steven helped himself to what little food and drink he needed to make a meal and restock his traveling pack. He left a silver coin at each place that he took bread, meat, or wine. Having replenished his rations, he proceeded to head out of the town and continued on his way.

Just as he passed under the arch that marked this boundary of the city, Steven heard whistling. It was faint at first, but stronger as Steven looked up the hill outside the town gate. It was an almost tuneless melody that came from the town’s bone yard where generations of the dead had been buried. Steven wound his way through the stone monuments with names of people on them until he saw a shovel full of dirt come flying from a hole and a head emerge shortly thereafter. The head was attached to a rather dirty and scruffily bearded man who whistled as he held a gold chain up to the light.

“Hello?” said Steven, a little uncertainly. The scruffy man was momentarily startled and quickly thrust the gold chain into his pocket. He turned to Steven and smiled a broad, gap-toothed, grin.

“Hello there, stranger,” said the man. “What brings you to the former Town of Mallowrock?” The man seemed quite friendly and Steven gladly answered.

“I’m Steven George the Dragonslayer,” he said. “I’m on a quest to find the Terror of Rich Reach.”

“Well, that’s a mouthful,” said the man. “I’m Tom Jak the Gravedigger, on a quest to fill my pockets with gold.”

“Where is the dead man you will be burying?” Steven asked, looking around.

“Oh, he’s right here under my feet in this grave.”

“You mean you’ve uncovered him?” asked Steven, perplexed.

“Now how else would I find the gold chains and watches, rings and jewels that they buried with him?” asked Tom. “Terrible wasteful of folks to bury all that stuff with the dead. Hundred years later the body is gone, but the gold is still there.”
“So you aren’t really a gravedigger,” said Steven. “You are really more of a graverobber.”

“I ask you, sir,” said Tom Jak, “what is this I’m standing in?”

“A grave,” said Steven.

“And what have I been doing with this here shovel all afternoon?” asked Tom.

“Digging?” Steven suggested tentatively.

“A grave and digging. Grave. Dig. Gravedigger,” said Tom with finality.

“But you are taking from the grave, not putting people in it,” Steven countered. “Grave robber.”

“No, no, no,” said Tom. “You could say maybe grave-taker if you had to. But that makes it sound like I’m taking the grave someplace. I’m not robbing, though. Now see here. If you are going to rob, you need a person who has something you steal from him. If I pluck an apple from a tree and eat it, I’m no tree-robber. And if I fish a trout from the stream, I’m no stream-robber. And no more than if I dig a grave and find a fancy gold chain am I a grave robber. It don’t belong to nobody, so now it is mine!”

“But it belonged to the person in the grave,” said Steven.

“He’s dead!” exclaimed Tom. “I ask you, if a farmer dies, does he own the crops in the field? Does he still own his house? Is his widow still married? No, no, and no. Why? Because the man is dead and dead is dead. It’s like saying the grass is owned by the soil, for I’ll tell you, this old fellow in this grave is nothing but soil now.”

Steven was amazed by the man’s logic. He could actually see that it made sense in its own crooked way.

“Don’t the people who live here object?” asked Steven.

“The people who live here are all dead,” said Tom.

“Everyone in the town died?” exclaimed Steven.

“No. Most of them left,” answered Tom. “Just the only ones who are still here are dead. Except me, of course,” he amended.

“Why did they leave?” asked Steven.

“The Terror,” said Tom in his spookiest voice. “Give me a hand out of this grave now, would you? It’s time to fill ‘er back in.” Steven proffered his hand to the gravedigger and Tom climbed out. He took a long pull on a wine jug that lay nearby and then began filling the hole back in.

“Aren’t you afraid of the terror, too?” asked Steven.

“Ahhh no,” said Tom. “It won’t bother me. See the nature of these terror things is to get groups of people to panic and run away. If you don’t got a group, you don’t got a terror. It’s too much work for it to work one person into a panic.”

“Did you ever actually see the terror?” asked Steven.

“No,” said Tom. “Can’t say I did. In fact, can’t say anybody did. Probably wouldn’t have scared them so much if they’d seen it. Some said it was an animal. Some said it was a man. Some said it was the dead come back to life. Everytime they talked about it, it was bigger and scarier and people got more and more worked up. Then one day they all up and left in a hurry.”

“Where did they go?” asked Steven.

“This way, that way, every way,” said Tom.

“Didn’t anyone try to find the terror and stop it?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” said Tom panting with another shovelful of dirt. “Now I tell you what. You start shoveling and I’ll sit here and tell you a story.”

“Shall we trade once upon a times?” asked Steven.

“Aye, we shall,” said Tom. “I’ll tell a story while you shovel, and you can tell a story when we’ve eaten our fill and drunk at the inn. And tomorrow we’ll look at the sun and laugh at the terror again.”

And so Steven began to shovel.

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