Stiltskin (Andrew Buckley) (35 page)

“Definitely top of the list,” agreed the voice.

The lid cracked completely and the earth began to shift.

It had taken Frank a long time to make it up Smithwell Lane as his keen sense of direction, heavily influenced by alcohol, had become about as sharp as a plastic spoon. To his credit, he’d actually managed to stay on the road for the most part, except when he stopped to relieve his bladder, during which time he detoured to one of the fields and ended up falling into a ditch. He hadn’t noticed at the time, but the sheep in the field had enjoyed a good laugh at Frank’s expense. Laughing and grinning came much easier to sheep than scowling.

He’d finally reached the graveyard at Slack Top as the rain began to pour and lightning lit up the skies. For a moment, he’d thought that he’d seen a man and a child holding a big garbage bag standing in the graveyard, but then they were gone and Frank chalked it up to being really, really drunk. Frank lived not much farther up the lane, but something else in the graveyard caught his eye. Like any good Yorkshire man, he was profoundly superstitious and fully believed that banshees roamed graveyards at night to guard the dead. He could hear something over the sound of the rain. It was like a growl or a roar, and there was creaking, and then thunder.

Frank was not brave by any stretch of the imagination, but he enjoyed telling a good story as much as anyone. If he actually managed to see a banshee, then that would make a spectacular story to tell the lads down at the pub and so his drunken brain encouraged his jelly-like legs to propel him forward into the graveyard to investigate further. He tripped over the one sheep, who was no longer scowling but continued to be lost in the graveyard.

“Ba-a-a-a!” said the sheep.

“Bugger off wit ya!” said Frank as he scrambled to his feet.

He staggered up the overgrown path that ran through the middle of the graveyard. The lightning lit up his surroundings on a regular basis and Frank found that he’d begun to shake.

“What are you doing, Frankie old boy, this is no place for you,” he said to himself.

And then he saw the earth move over to his right. He stared intently through the darkness at where he’d seen the movement, and as his eyes adjusted, he saw it move again. It was like the grave was breathing.

He squinted at the headstone, which read
Elise Marie Palmer
. Frank remembered Elise. She was a large woman with eternally messy hair and a general hatred for pretty much everyone. She’d really gone off the deep end when her son had been killed in a tragic farming accident. She’d taken to dancing naked on the moors whenever there was a full moon, and when confronted about it, she hadn’t even known what she was doing or why.

“It just felt like the right thing to do,” she would say.

The earth heaved again in front of him and there was that growling sound again. Frank’s natural reflex urged him to back away from the grave. He did so as it heaved again. And then again. And then the earth exploded, along with splintered wood, just as lightning flashed across the sky.

Frank let out a squeal that sounded like someone had stepped on a guinea pig. A large, wolf-like creature clawed its way up and out of the grave, stood in the mud and the rain, and howled at the sky victoriously.

Frank was instantaneously sober. He screamed again and sprinted away, not down the path, but through the graveyard, up over one of the walls, and disappeared into the darkness. He was found the next day curled up in the corner of a field surrounded by grinning sheep, half out of his mind. Later in the week, he resolved to move to Lancashire where everything that had once seemed boring now seemed much more safe and normal.

Robert climbed and wriggled his way out of the grave, then lay on his back in the mud and tried to catch his breath. He had Lily’s clothes stuffed under his own sweater so they wouldn’t get buried in the grave. He looked up at the werewolf, who was looking back down at him. Its tongue hung out the side of its mouth and it was panting.

The werewolf knelt down beside Robert and licked his cheek. The creature began to shrink before Robert’s eyes. The claws retracted, the bones cracked as they realigned, the muscles shrank, long, black hair grew from its head while the wolf hair shed away. Breasts protruded from its chest and Lily knelt beside him, looking exhausted. She lay down in the mud next to him and put an arm across his chest.

“I need to rest a moment,” she said, and he put an arm around her and pulled her close.

As they lay there together in the mud, the rain falling toward them, lightning flashing above them, an empty grave beside them, Robert was thankful that they had escaped. He was even more thankful that they were together and with that in mind, he smiled contently as thunder resounded across the sky.

Rumpelstiltskin and Jack exited a door in Thiside and found they were on a mountaintop. It was still daytime in Thiside and the sun was only just beginning its fall toward the horizon.

“Where are we?” growled Jack.

“How should I know? You didn’t wish to go anywhere, you just wished for a door!” shouted the Dwarf.

“Why didn’t you tell me that at the time?”

“I wasn’t thinking about it at the time, I just wanted to get out of the damn rain and that wretched graveyard.”

“Then we should go back through the door until we’re closer.”

“You know, you’ve never told me, Jack, exactly why it is you freed me to finish the thing that you originally arrested me for.”

“I don’t need to tell you!”

“True, but it would sure help me understand things better. You have to admit it’s hard for me to trust you without knowing your motives.”

Jack grabbed the Dwarf by the shirt and picked him up so they were face to face.

“Look here, you little twerp! You should be thankful that I arranged for you to escape from the Tower. You’re lucky the Hatter is a gullible idiot who agreed to accept a smuggled-in spell to create a hole between your two cells! Most of all, you should be thankful that I haven’t changed my mind and killed you yet. I don’t like you, Dwarf. And I don’t need to tell you anything.”

He dropped the Dwarf in a heap and hoisted the garbage bag containing the remains of Elise Bastinda over his shoulder.

The Dwarf’s eyes narrowed as a nefarious scheme entered his devious little mind.

“Fair enough,” said the Dwarf from the ground, “I suggest you wish for another door, or even better, wish where it is you want to go.”

“Where is it we’re going, anyway?”

“To perform this spell, I need a strong magical field. The strongest there is.”

“And where would that be?”

The Dwarf smiled. Jack was big, he was old, he was an excellent interrogator, he was amazing when it came to hurting people. But first and foremost, Jack was an idiot.

“The Great Hall in the Wizards’ Council building, of course,” smiled the Dwarf.

“Fine. Let’s get this over with so you can work your spell. I wish for a door to take us―”

“Ah, ah, ah,” said the Dwarf. “Not us. You have to wish
me
. Any reference to yours truly will render the wish null and void.”

“I wish for a door to take
me
to the Great Hall in the Wizards’ Council building.”

“Granted,” said the Dwarf and a door opened before them. “I’ll take the bag; there may be wizards waiting on the other side and your authority will certainly be more effective against them than mine would be.”

Jack handed over the bag.

“Okay,” said Rumpelstiltskin, “let’s go.”

And with that the Dwarf jumped through the door. Jack dived after him…

…and rolled out into the Great Hall in the City of Oz. The wizards were having lunch and were surprised by the appearance of an Agent. Jack was equally surprised to see that there was no sign of Rumpelstiltskin anywhere in the vast hall.

“Excuse me,” said Jack, “did any of you see a Dwarf come through here?”

An elderly wizard with a pointy nose and long, flowing, white hair, part of which was sitting in his soup, said, “No, I’m afraid not.”

“This is rather inappropriate,” said another wizard. “Just because you’re an Agent doesn’t give you the right to disturb our lunch. We’ll have to speak to the Agency Director about this.”

“My apologies, I’ll look elsewhere.” Jack strode from the hall with his fists clenched. He waited until he was out of the hall and in a stairwell before he punched a hole through the wall.

“That damn Dwarf tricked me!”

The Dwarf in question stepped out of a different doorway that appeared to be in a lush field next to a small cottage. The smell of bread floated through the air. Rumpelstiltskin let out a chilling laugh in celebration of his own brilliance.
What a fool, Jack is. He wished for him to go to the Great Hall, not me! He even believed that there was a miscommunication that caused us not to meet up outside the city. He’ll believe anything. Although I can’t help but wonder what he has to gain from me completing my little project? Either way, he doesn’t know the true location of the spell and therefore he will no longer be an issue. Now, on with the show!

Rumpelstiltskin stole a few bread rolls from the ledge of the cottage, which he assumed must be the house of the Muffin Man and, carrying his garbage bag, ran away down the Yellow Brick Road in search of a door to take him to his final destination.

Soaked to the skin and freezing cold, Robert couldn’t be happier. They lay together for around half an hour, during which time Lily had fallen asleep. Robert had discovered that she had a cute snore. Sort of like a puppy. Although he still found it hard to look at her without seeing a giant snarling monster, he couldn’t help but find her to be the best thing in the entire world that had ever happened to him.

Lily began to wake up, and Robert couldn’t resist asking something that had been bothering him. “Lily, who is Jack?”

“You mean in relation to the fairy tales of Othaside?”

Robert didn’t want to offend Lily, as he now knew that Thisiders who had been replicated as characters in fairy tale stories in Othaside often found the comparison insulting.

“I know you don’t like to talk about Thiside in those terms, but yes. The Agency seems to employ particular kinds of people.”