SPARX Incarnation: Mark of the Green Dragon (SPARX Series I Book 1) (14 page)

Chapter XX

The ruse

W
e were halfway to town and Jory was nearing the climax of yet another bog horror story. Gariff looked as wide-eyed as I had ever seen him. Bobbin and Holly hung on his every word. Our guard had a way of holding back the telling in such a way that you couldn’t stop listening if you tried. Gariff had become his biggest fan on this journey, topping even Holly’s enthusiasm. Maybe all the attention Jory was getting was the reason Kabor and I hung back, both hooded and pretending not to be overly interested. But for me, there was another reason.

“Kabor, I—”

“Shhh.”

“I think something is following us,” I said anyway.

Kabor shot me an irritated glance. “It’s just the bog stories. You’re as bad as Gariff. Now shut up. He’s almost done with it and we’re missing the ending.” His voice became pleading. “The ending’s always the best part.”

There was no dismissing instinct though, even despite the fact that the telltale signs, like the usual snap of a twig, or footsteps, or wildlife scattering, were all absent. It was the little things that made me suspect we were being tracked: a soft shuffle in the rushes that didn’t quite fit with the wind, a shadow seen out of the corner of the eye, a small splash. And then there was the gut feeling. The gut feeling sums up all the other little ways the mind opens up to the world that the conscious self doesn’t even know about, the things that can’t quite be put to words. Any one of the more subtle signs could be ignored, but together, and with a gut feeling on top, they could not. That would be foolish.

Finally, over Jory’s talk, I caught the sound of an undeniably peculiar stir in the rushes off the trail. It was not alarming at first, but it was not the natural sort of rustling that a bird or a small animal was apt to make either. The sound was too quick-paced and there was something about it… a soft shaking trying to be loud, perhaps. I stopped and pricked my ears. The noise ceased. Kabor, hiking beside me, noticed the sudden change in my composure. He grimaced and followed my example. The others kept on ahead.

I whispered to Kabor. “Did you hear something?”

“I think so, that time,” he whispered back.

For a brief moment, we stood in the middle of the trail, eyes searching far and near. On the horizon, the pale violet sky warned of the coming of dusk. Jory’s voice still floated back to us, but suddenly it seemed half-empty. The mossy silence and stillness of the bog soaked up the other half.

At the end of Jory’s story, Gariff made a loud gasp, followed by a nervous laugh. Bobbin and Holly groaned and guffawed. Kabor gave me a disappointed look – he hadn’t caught the last of it.

In low tones, an unfamiliar sound began to build. It rose from underneath the chatter like a growing moan. It rose and filled the still, boggy air while the laughter of my friends turned uncertain, and teetered off. Then, without warning, the moan shot to the height of a decapitating wail. If pain had a voice, it would sound just that way. My ears hurt to hear it.

The group ahead shot accusing looks back to us. Bobbin was smirking. “Funny, guys,” he said. “You can stop now.”

But it was not us.

Kabor and I turned to scan the waterscape behind us: between the hummocks and the hollows, the grey standing dead wood and the hillocks crowded with alders, there were many places to hide.

“It wasn’t them,” said Holly.

Something slapped the water farther ahead, just off shore. Then another long and dreadful moan from behind us made my heart pump wildly. I watched and waited.
Silence
.

“It’s probably just a fish,” said Kabor, “or maybe a muskrat.”

“A fish?” I was astonished. “How could it possibly be a fish? Do fish moan? It’s NOT a fish.”

“I meant the splash,” he said.

Jory fixed his eyes on a grassy mound near where the splash came from. “I don’t see how it could be a muskrat either,” he called back. “Maybe some kind of bird though… or a big frog. I know a story about a giant frog—”

“You go first,” Holly interjected, “I don’t want to walk right into it, whatever it is.”

Jory nodded. “Right… I’ll scout up ahead a bit.” Spear readied, he moved forward, alone. All eyes were on him. That left Bobbin with Holly and Gariff, me with Kabor, and Jory on his own: three positions spread over about ten paces, or fifty feet.

While Jory was off poking his spear into large, grassy hummocks, a crackled old voice called from behind, soft and muffled. The voice had a motherly quality, but there was something off about it, something wickedly off. I shivered as though touched by winter’s chill.

“Over here l’il young’ns… ya, ya. I gots som’emm for you… I do, I do.”

Against the dark blue of a freshly twilit sky, the silhouette of a hunched-over woman rose from behind a large, grassy clump, just beyond the trail’s edge. She was not five paces from where we stood. Her bent frame stood head and shoulders above the tall rushes. Gariff came to join us right away as me and Kabor peered into the off-trail dimness.

“Who is it?” said Kabor. “I can’t see.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his glasses. He put them on and gave the woman a sideways look.

The woman waved her long and bony arms at us to get our attention, as though not sure we had seen her. Long dark hair fell in loose tangles past her shoulders. Scant woven rushes were her only discernable clothes, barely concealing a waif body.

She beckoned us over. Gariff and I took a few steps closer.

“Are you hurt?” called Bobbin, from quite far back. He clung to Holly’s arm.

“Yesums, yesums,” said the woman in the bog, “but I’ll be just fine now. I gots som’emm for you… I do, I do.”

Gariff and I inched closer, Kabor a step behind.

I whispered to the cousins. “Can you see what it is?”

Gariff shook his head. I looked back to Kabor. He mouthed a “No.” I saw Jory in the background. He had planted the butt end of his spear in the mud, and was fumbling for something at his side.

“What’s going on over there?” Jory said. “Is everything all right?”

“Someone’s here,” replied Holly. “A woman.”

“Be there in a minute. There’s something…” Jory trailed off.

I turned my attention back to the woman in the rushes.

Bobbin called out to her. “We don’t need anything, but thanks anyways.” He sounded genuinely concerned, even sympathetic. “You shouldn’t be out here on your own at nightfall. And you’ll catch a draft if you don’t dry off. It’ll be pitched black before you know it.”

There was no response.

“It isn’t safe. Are you hungry?” he added.

Soaking wet, by rights the woman in the bog should have been feeling cold and plenty afraid right about then. Her sunken and shadowed eyes pleaded for compassion.

“Robbers gots to me, hurts me… they did, they did. They stoles everything. They even stoles my clotheses… ya, ya.”

The woman in the bog hacked and coughed for a few broken moments, then cleared her throat. Her voice was raspy next she spoke.

“Only grasses for me to wear now… ya, ya, and I sneaks around in the water to gets away, I did, I did.”

I whispered to Gariff. “If everything was stolen, how could she possibly have something for us?”

She heard. “Something special… ya, ya. Something special no one could
ever
steal.”

The way she moved didn’t look right. Every subtle motion came with an off twist or an unexpected jerk, and the surrounding rushes dithered with a dragging sound underneath, as though snakes lay coiling at her feet.

“Come into town with us,” pleaded Bobbin. “You can have my cloak. We have a guard.” He still played the gentleman, but just the same, he reminded her that we had protection.
Smart.
“You’ll be safe with us,” he added.

“Safe? Guard? Do you now… hmmm?” she said. Even in the falling darkness, she could not hide her sly smile.

And just like that, as if on cue, we heard another giant splash up ahead. We all turned to look. Then came a thrashing sound from the same direction, a muffled gasp, and the rushes jittered sharply.

Holly’s shrill voice cut through the tension. “Jory!”

She grabbed Bobbin’s arms, frantic. “Where’s Jory? I don’t see him anywhere!”

Something moved in the shallow water. For a long minute, I watched and waited as the disturbance came towards us, whipping reeds in its wake. Then it stopped.

Holly’s voice rang out over the bog once more. “JORY!”

There was no response.

The woman in the grasses called to us again. She’d moved in while our attention was elsewhere.

“A little closer this way comes… ya, ya,” the woman now begged, “come be safe with me… ya, ya. I’ll protects you now, li’l ones.”

Up close, we could see that the demented old woman was dripping wet and naught but skin and bones. Her hair was a tangled mess of mud, reeds and half-decayed twigs. But for an instant, I saw in her expression something youthful and pure, and there was something steady and unrelenting about her eyes. I took another step closer.

The Stouts stood their ground.

“That’s right… ya, ya,” urged the woman, “closer… closer.” She opened her arms, her meek chest scantily clad in her roughly woven half-shirt.

“Protect you… I will, I will.” Though the old crone’s face was largely hidden in shadow, her eyes gleamed in the twilight. Arms wide, she invited me in to her embrace.

Gariff lurched forward and grabbed my arm. “We need to get out of here,” he said. “
Now
.” He pulled me back. “Something’s not right, Nud.”

I felt hazy. I tried to walk towards her, without knowing why.

“Stop!” he boomed.

I shook my head and came to my senses.

Gariff pleaded with me. “That thing… it… she must be a bog queen… just look at her! She’ll pull you under!”

Kabor was quick to agree. “Gariff’s right Nud! Don’t go any closer!”

“What’s a… a… a bog queen?” asked Bobbin.

“Don’t worry ,” the woman’s voice called out again. “No worries for brave l’il Pips like you… no, no. No worries for Stoutsies either,” the woman assured us. “No worries for the l’il childrens… no, no.”

“Something’s on the road!” Holly screeched. Two hunched figures had stepped out of the darkness ahead, and onto the trail. Holly and Bobbin backed away.

The two newcomers planted themselves in plain view, blocking the trail where we last saw Jory. There was still no sign of him. Only the occasional ripple of water told me something still lurked in the deep pool.

The two figures ahead of us were also women, in the manner of the first: old crones, crooked and decrepit.

One of the two misshapen hags – taller and more hunched than her companion – cleared her throat three times before she spat onto the trail. Her shoulders bent in so drastically, they nearly touched one another. She spoke in a raspy gurgle.

“Give us something. Yes… give us a present for the Shadow in the Water, and we’ll take it down with us, down, down to the gardens, for safekeeping, yes.”

The hunched woman coughed, then spat, then coughed some more and had a coughing fit. When her throat finally cleared, the hag lifted one scrawny arm and pointed a boney finger at Kabor.

“Or maybe we’ll take YOU,” she said to the Stout, and then shifted her arm again, slowly. She pointed to Holly next. “Or YOU my l’il princess… you, you… take you where you can be safe, in the gardens.”

The first hag, the one in the grasses, whined, shrill and accusing. Her body twisted and contorted as she scolded the others. “No, no… you fools, you FOOLS… you were supposed to wait. WAIT, I said.” She sighed heavily and threw her arms down in despair.

Holly and Bobbin slowly backed away from the two hags to join the rest of us.

The hag who had not yet spoken opened her mouth to add her piece. Only a shapeless gargle came out. She coughed and spat and heaved and gurgled and spat again. She shook her head and, finally, the words took form.

“What have you gots for us, l’il Pipses?”

I mouthed the word: “Thieves.” I felt strangely relieved. The cousins heard me.

We all moved into a tight group and looked to one another. Bobbin checked his pockets and shrugged his shoulders at Holly.

“Come’on, give them
something
,” said Holly. “Then they’ll leave us be.” She started searching through her pockets. Holly was trembling and her face was white.

“You’re right,” said Kabor, calmly, “we should give them something, whatever we can.”

The two hags ahead of us whispered to one another, inaudibly.

Gariff took control. “Hold on,” he called out to the whispering hags, “just give us a moment to collect our things.” Stout level-headedness prevailed, despite Gariff’s earlier fear of the mere
legend
of the bog queens. Strangely enough, he was actually more together when confronted with the real thing. That was his strength.

“You have to give Jory back,” said Gariff. “Show him to us first, or you’re getting nothing but a fight.”

The lone hag writhed and twisted and gurgled in the rushes. I felt a light spray on my cheeks when she spat at us.

“Oh… give back?” said the hunched-in hag up ahead. She chuckled. “Hee hee… no, no, silly l’il ones.”

“Silly, silly,” said her companion. She wore a ridiculous flower that hung loosely from her hair. It was old and decayed, just like her.

Gariff kept us on task. “OK pipsqueaks, what’cha got? My pack has two small shovels, a clay jar, a pick-hammer, spare clothes… damn! My compass is in there too.”

“I have nothing,” said Bobbin, “We ate everything I brought… see.” He opened his pack to prove it, and then made a sick face as he glanced down at his ballooning stomach.

Kabor felt his pockets. “I have some change from the market and the stone Nud gave me, and…” Kabor pulled his knife out slightly.

Keep it,
I thought. I couldn’t say it straight out though, for fear of being heard, so I just looked at him and mouthed a subtle “Shhh.” He closed his fist around the knife and slipped it back into his pocket.

“What about you, Holly?” Gariff asked.

“Well,” she replied, hesitantly. Holly undid her necklace and passed it to him.