Boondocks Fantasy Read online

  Ahead ... this seemed strange. On a limb not far above the ground someone had placed a plastic owl like the one in Martha’s garden. They would frighten away the rabbits or something like that. You could buy them, Martha had said, at the feed store.

  “Who comes?”

  The words were plain, the voice uttering them plainly not human.

  “Who comes?”

  He advanced, looking for the speaker. This owl’s head was turned slightly to its right. Martha’s owl had stared straight ahead.

  “Wherefore come ye here?”

  He advanced toward the owl, which spread enormous wings and flew off as silently as a shadow.

  Another half hour’s leisurely walking brought the sound of water, and the writer of children’s books hurried ahead, recalling that the shopkeeper had mentioned a footbridge.

  There was none, only a stream by no means contemptible and, on the farther side, cottages long fallen to ruin.

  On this side stood a tall and narrow wooden building wholly innocent of paint. From it protruded, motionless, a great wooden wheel. Water from the stream filled it and flowed noisily over it, creating the sound he had heard. He took pictures, shifting his location left and right, zooming in and out.

  Two windows, windows on what was surely the uppermost floor of the narrow structure, seemed to watch him like eyes—the dark and empty eyes of a skull. A moment later he retracted the thought. Someone or something small had passed behind one of those windows.

  He shouted, and it seemed to him that the plashing, chuckling water mocked him.

  The door of the mill was not quite latched. He pushed it wide and went in, wary of the broad, warped, splintering floorboards, although they felt sturdy beneath the soles of his boots. Someone, he felt, (perhaps many someones) was waiting inside, hushed.

  “Hello?”

  He had intended to shout, but the word emerged as little more than a whisper.

  He tried again: “HELLO!”

  The echoes were mixed with stifled laughter.

  Children, he decided. This would be a fine place for children to play, and children from nearby farms must be taking advantage of it.

  “I SEE YOU!”

  Giggles this time. He could have bought chocolate in the little shop, and he wished now that he had.

  He began inspecting the machinery. The shaft of the water wheel would no doubt enter the first floor above. Its rotation would be transmitted, presumably by angle gears, to the big vertical shaft here on the ground floor. That would drive this big gear with the strange teeth-

  A small, dark face appeared through the doorway at the top of the steps. The writer of children’s books looked up, but the small face vanished. He trotted up the rough stair.

  The room he entered at the top seemed crowded with machinery and empty of children. He peered around shafts and peeped through the spokes of more strange gear wheels; there were no small faces, and yet there was a feeling ... Quite loudly he exclaimed, “Now that’s odd! There’s no one here!”

  Muffled giggles.

  “If there were someone somewhere, I would catch him by the scruff of his dirty neck. Just like this!” The writer of children’s books caught the collar of his Norfolk jacket behind his head and pulled it up. “Then I’d march him all around the room. Like this!”

  Laughter grew louder as he made the circuit of the first floor, and louder still as he passed one dark corner. As quickly as he could, he released his collar and thrust both hands into the darkness, where one grasped a small arm.

  The boy (if it was a boy) pulled into the light was dark brown, with a broad, humorous face. He wore a soiled cap bearing the words “Red Sox” in white, and nothing else.

  “Ah ha!” exclaimed the writer of children’s books, “You’ve been spying on me, have you? I ought to spank your bottom until the potatoes sail home across the wide seas.”

  More laughter.

  “Now then!” He spun the boy (if it was a boy) around. “You face up to me and talk like a proper gentleman, or—or I’ll take your picture.”

  The small brown figure stood very straight. “I’ll tell you anything you wants to hear ’bout, squire. Not no lies neither . . .”

  Gales of laughter.

  “We shall see. First of all-”

  “No, siree! We wasn’t fixin’ to do nothin’ like that to you, squire. Nor ride your horse nor nothing. We shy, we is, an’ that’s the whack-bang finish of it.”

  “I haven’t asked yet,” the writer of children’s book protested mildly.

  “Saves time, squire.” The small brown face tried hard to look angelic. “Saves work too, it do. If I answers you’fore you asks me, we goes ever so quick.”

  “In that case—” the writer of children’s books began.

  “Why right here, squire. We lives here, ’cause we’re here and if we wasn’t livin’ we’d be goners.”

  “Do you mean to say—”

  “Lets us live here, the giant do. Can’t eat us ’cause we’re inside here, an’ won’t eat us ’cause we’re company.”

  “Which one-”

  “Why it’s both together, squire. ’Spose it was the other way, see? Can eat us ’cause we’re here and would eat us ’cause we’re company. He’d have ter eat us twice. You see that, don’t you, squire? Swaller us, like, and cough us up right off ter swaller agin.”

  A new voice, rather timid, said, “He couldn’t, ’cause we’re inside him already. We’re his worms, like. If you was to swaller sump’en that’s inside you already, it turns you inside out.”

  The writer of children’s books looked around and saw a girl (if it was a girl) much smaller than the boy he held. She wore a little scarlet cape whose pattern suggested that until quite recently it had been a big bandanna, and nothing else.

  “You are inside the giant?” The writer of children’s books looked almost as puzzled as he felt.

  The girl (if it was a girl) nodded vigorously. “He’s real big, too! Bigger ’n you!”

  “This”—the writer of children’s books made an all-encompassing gesture—“is the—”

  “Right you are, squire!” It was the boy in the Red Sox cap, and he pulled a sleeve of the Norfolk jacket. “This is him, an’ we’re swallered.”

  “In that case,” the writer of children’s books began, “I’ve been—”

  The girl (if it was a girl) shook her head. “I don’t b’lieve so.”

  “You don’ look chewed nor swallered, squire,” the boy (if it was a boy) told the writer of children’s books. “’Sides the giant’s been a-sleepin’ these hun’ered years. We knows how ter wake him tho.”

  “On’y we don’t do it,” the girl (if it was a girl) put in. “Him bein’ too fractious, like.”

  “How would you wake him,” the writer of children’s books asked, “if you wanted to?”

  “’Tis main hard, squire.” The boy (if it was a boy) waved toward a stout stick, polished dark by time and many hands, protruding from the ceiling. “That pole there works the brake wheel. Pull ’er like ter what she’s pulled now, and the water wheel won’t turn. Know the water wheel, do ’e, squire?”

  The writer of children’s books shook his head. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  “’Tis the big wheel outside what catches the flood, squire.”

  “Oh,” said the writer of children’s books. “That wheel.”

  “Aye! That ’un. Well, squire, do we put the stick t’other way, why, he wakes.” The boy (if it was a boy) turned to the girl (if it was a girl). “Wake ’im a bit, Posy. Let the squire see ’im.”

  The girl (if it was a girl) looked frightened and shook her head.

  “Most giants,” mused the writer of children’s books, “are men of large stature, with two heads.”

  “Oh, ’e can do that, squire,” the boy (if it was a boy) said. “’E can do that, or else a ship, like, or a mountains wot breathes fire an’ flame. ’E’s done them, too. Or a tree, a big ol’ bear, or else a sp
innin’ wind.”

  “Impressive,” allowed the writer of children’s books.

  “Show the squire, Posy, else I’ll whang you.”

  Trembling, the girl (if it was a girl) grasped the lever and appeared to pull it with all her strength. It did not move, not even slightly.

  “Piggy!” the boy (if it was a boy) called. “Give Posy a hand. There’s a good ’un!”

  Piggy was not quite as large as the boy (if it was a boy), but there was something worse than porcine about his face, and two tusks rose from his lower jaw almost to the height of his eyes. His red cap proved, upon closer inspection, to be a bloodstained rag wound about his head.

  He and Posy heaved at the lever without result.

  “It seems to me,” said the writer of children’s books, “that I’m in the wrong book.”

  “Whatcher mean, squire?”

  “Well . . .” The writer of children’s books looked about him for a place to sit, and decided upon the windowsill. “Well, it’s seemed to me for some years that life is an enormous novel God is writing, and that I’m a character in that novel, along with everyone I know.”

  “Oooo!” exclaimed Posy.

  “Yes. Exactly. Now if one thinks much about books, as I do, one soon sees that certain characters belong in certain books, but”—here he paused impressively—“do NOT belong in some others. Fancy Mary Poppins popped down in Treasure Island. Would that work, I ask you?”

  The boy (if it was a boy) scratched his head. “Be a bit of a stretch, squire.”

  “Indeed. And this is a bit of a stretch for me.” The writer of children’s books rose, having reached another decision. “I mean to retrace my steps and thus, as I hope, return to the book in which I belong.”

  “We’ll come with you,” Posy said. After a moment she added, “On’y the first li’l bit o’ the way, like.”

  “In that case you will go,” the writer of children’s books told her, “in two senses, for I intend to take your pictures, all three of you, so that I may look at them when I get back into the book in which I belong. Form a group, will you? Tallest in the middle, ’eh?”

  “Better not, squire,” the boy (if it was a boy) told him.

  Piggy grunted.

  Posy exclaimed, “Not me!” and hid her face in the red cloak that had once been a bandanna.

  “Wait!” said a new, cracked voice. An old man (if it was an old man) stepped out of another shadowy corner. His back was bent, his red cap woven of roses. “There be paths one must nae tread and words that must nae be said.”

  A moment more, and he had seized the right arm of the writer of children’s books. At the next moment, the writer of children’s books had pushed him violently away, his left hand in the old man’s face.

  “Where did he go?” The writer of children’s books looked from the boy (if it was a boy) to Posy, and from Posy to Piggy, but none of them answered him. Something warm and wet was running down his wrist. He stared at his left hand, saw blood seeping from his palm, and wrapped his hand in his handkerchief.

  “Ooo!” moaned Posy.

  The writer of children’s books had already raised his camera. In a moment more he had the boy (if it was a boy) in his viewfinder, a full-length shot. He pressed the shutter release, and the built-in flash flashed.

  “Cooo!” exclaimed Posy.

  “And now,” said the writer of children’s books, “I’ll be able to show you your picture.”

  He looked himself first. The thing standing beside the huge, toothed gearwheel was black and shaggy and almost shapeless. One eye glared above two ragged rows of fangs. He stared at it, mesmerized.

  “Fee!” said the great gear wheel.

  “Hide!” shouted the boy (who was certainly not a boy), and the writer of children’s books looked up.

  The great gear wheel was trembling and grinding: “Fie! Foe! Fum!”

  The lever that had refused so adamantly to move was moving now, creeping through a slow arc, though no one was touching it.

  “I smell the blood of an Englishman!”

  All the gears and shafts began to turn. “Be he live or be he dead,” chanted a smaller gear.

  A gear tooth caught the Norfolk jacket worn by the writer of children’s books, and he saw, in his final moments of life, that the gear wheel’s great, coarse, squarish teeth were actual teeth, yellowed and sharp.

  “I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!”

  PROTECTION

  Timothy Zahn

  Timothy Zahn has been writing science fiction for more than thirty years. In that time he has published forty novels, nearly ninety short stories and novelettes, and four collections of short fiction. Best known for his eight Star Wars novels, he is also the author of the Quadrail series, the Cobra series, and the young-adult Dragonback series. Recent books include Terminator Salvation: Trial by Fire and Cobra Guardian, the second of the Cobra War Trilogy. Upcoming books include Star Wars: Choices of One and Judgment at Proteus, the final book of the Quadrail series. The Zahn family lives on the Oregon coast.

  The small flock of sheep had settled into the meadow alongside Boone Creek, and Jeff Harfeld was all the way across on the far side of it, when Maizie decided to make her break.

  She did it subtly, of course, or at least as subtly as a sheep could do anything. She started by angling away from the rest of the animals, as if she was merely following a particularly tasty stand of grass. Then she veered a little farther.

  The next thing Jeff knew, she was waddling directly away and straight for the woods, moving as fast as her stubby little legs would take her.

  Jeff shook his head, wondering yet again how some of these creatures managed to survive. The grass in the meadow was far superior to anything Maizie would find in the woods, and there was the creek for water, and there were no predators. Yet Maizie had somehow gotten it into her woolly head that life would be better in the forest, so off she took.

  Jeff had been herding sheep ever since he was a teenager, and he knew they weren’t exactly brilliant. But even with that standard, Jake Thompson’s flock had to be one of the dumbest and most stubborn flock of mammals in the state.

  Maizie was nearly to the first line of trees now, her backside waggling as she trundled along. For most herders, this would be the time to whistle up one of their border collies or German shepherds to go round up the critter and get it back.

  But Jeff had no dogs. For one thing, working dog upkeep was expensive, and he couldn’t afford it.

  For another, he had something better.

  First, he took a moment to carefully scan the edges of the meadow. Not too many people came to this part of Rilling Lake, but he couldn’t afford to take any chances. Satisfying himself that there was no one else around, he threw himself toward the ground, shapeshifted into his wolf form, and headed off around the edge of the flock.

  A couple of the sheep lifted their heads as he loped by, but most of them just ignored him. His first couple of days with a new flock were usually pretty tense, but he’d been with Thompson’s sheep long enough that they mostly saw him now as just another big, gray dog.

  Maizie had made it to the woods by the time Jeff reached her. Planting himself directly in front of her, he gave a soft warning growl. She replied with an indignant bleat and tried to go around him. He sidestepped back into her path, and they did their usual brief two-step until she gave up and headed back. Jeff stayed right behind her the whole way, nudging her with his snout a couple of times to keep her moving. She reached the flock, and Jeff shifted back to human.

  For a long moment he gazed at the animals, a trickle of mixed emotions coloring his mood. Back in his childhood, before his parents had been killed in that accident, he’d dreamed about the kind of exciting life he would have one day. Instead, here he was, herding another man’s sheep.

  But at least it was work. With the economy in Travis County the way it was, he was lucky to have any job at all.

  The sun had passed the top of the sky
and disappeared behind some fluffy afternoon clouds by the time they reached the edge of the lake.

  Earlier, the sheep had had a good drink from the stream, and none of them seemed interested in sampling lake water now. They weren’t all that interested in walking any farther, either, and Jeff busily nudged them along the shore toward the gravel road that led back to Highway 46 in one direction and around the south end of the lake in the other.

  The road wasn’t the only way back to the Thompson ranch. It wasn’t even the most direct route, actually. But Jeff always tried to come this way, because right where the road turned to follow the lake was a mostly unused boat dock called Perkins Pier.

  And the only true friend he had in the entire county always saw him coming in time to be waiting under that dock when he and the sheep reached it.

  She was waiting there now, he saw, as he approached with his charges. The top of her head, from the eyes up, was just visible in the shadows beneath the rough wood, her shimmering, green-gray hair a perfect match for the lake grasses and long strands of algae riding the gentle waves.

  Again, Jeff looked carefully around. Again, there was no one else in sight. A quarter mile away across the lake, O’Reilly’s fishing shack was visible amid the reeds, but O’Reilly never visited the place except on weekends. “Hey, Tressla,” he called softly, working his way through the sheep toward the dock. “How’s the water today?”

  Tressla bobbed up a little higher, bringing the rest of her face into view. Normally, her lips would be open in a smile by now, her sharp, pointed white teeth in contrast to the textured tan-brown of her face.

  But today there was no smile on the mermaid’s face. Instead, as Jeff got closer, he noted deep tension lines.

  He grimaced. Had she run into another of the lost fishhooks that years of sport fishing had left on the lake bottom? “Hey,” he said again as he walked out to the end of the dock and lay down with his head hanging over the edge so that he could see her. “Is something wrong?”

  “Something is very wrong,” she said, her usually pleasant voice as harsh and grim as her face. “MacAvoy’s boat was out on the lake last night. Very late, after moonset.”