Consciousness returned. Dovi no longer fluttered at the flame. He was reborn. Gray eyes blinked. What in Heolor happened?
"Prrrrrrrr." Gussie's citrus eyes narrowed and closed. She nuzzled further into his chest and purred contently. Cobblestones poked his bottom and back, but something soft cradled his head. No signs of Lebonicus, Vis or Stigion.
He raised his hands to his neck and grabbed his wrist. Shockingly, the skin was creamy smooth. Not a hint of injury. Dovi pushed himself up on his elbows. Gussie's eyes opened wide. Nothing stirred in the alleyway. The soft cloth beneath his head was a rolled-up barman's apron. Sneedelton?
He brushed Gussie away and pushed himself to his feet. The black cat stretched, then bolted to the box crate and disappeared from view.
Dovi forced his breathing to slow and marched to the Rag-Tab's side door. He knocked tentatively. Don't say anything stupid. Just ask him what happened? And remember to say thank you.
After waiting a full minute, he rapped harder and took a step back.
Sneedelton pushed the door a quarter open, and stared down at Dovi with furrowed brows.
"What's this at? You. Looking for a handout? Read the sign: No Beggars. No Charities. No Solicitors. And I seen nothing and heard nothing. Boys' trouble is boys' trouble. Take your problems someplace else. Now get or I'll put a foot sideways up your arse." He pushed his wide girth through the doorway forcing Dovi to back away.
"B-But sir. I-I just wanted to say thank you for helping m-me," stuttered Dovi.
"Help? Boy, Lebonicus must have knocked you silly. I ain't help you with nothing. And don't mention my name again. Go. Leave me be." Sneedelton turned and slammed the door back against the splintered frame.
Dovi rubbed his temples. I don't understand.
With no answers forthcoming, Dovi turned and ran back to the alley's mouth. A sudden gust of wind buffeted his cloak behind him. Coal-tinged clouds rolled heavy upon the far edge of Wroughton Grove. He pulled his cloak tight and hurried past Tick Ballock's Tannery and Clintaffenner's Foundry. Should I stop and tell Rabby? A good meal and a warm blanket in the solitude of a horse barn sounded appealing. Father's going to whoop me for being late. Best to get it over with now.
Dovi left the busyness of Wroughton Grove behind, and trudged down a tertiary path leading through the bogs surrounding his family pig farm. Rows of stunted pines twisted up from the brackish quagmire. I hate Muck Gully. At least this wind has spared me from midges.
As if on queue, the steady breeze abruptly died down. A heavy stillness seeped into the swamp. Chirping treefrogs lost their song. Fat bullfrogs' boisterous bellows grew silent. No shrieks from the Thistlejays. No crittering from the any of the small, critterish things. Only your imagination.
Despite attempts to will away the subject, Dovi's incessantly whispering mind untombed a frightening old wives' tale: The legend of Bucktoothed Muck Sooth, namesake of Muck Gully. It was a story all of Wroughton Grove knew all too well. Muck Sooth, was "goodman" to Anemoliph Wroughton, the eccentric widow to the town's original founder, Bisby Wroughton. Muck had always been strange to folk, but got much stranger after becoming old Nemmy's caretaker soon after Bisby mysteriously disappeared. Most whispered behind his back and looked sideways at Muck. Said he was an odd fellow involved with odder things. Wasn't right in the head. Muck had a lazy eye, but not a lazy attitude. He was all business, all the time. Had no time for pleasantries. Be it push, pull, punch, kick or spit- if you stood between him and Nemmy, you felt his wrath.
Dovi cringed, as the twisted part of Muck's story surfaced: Watchers for the Crown eyed Muck and his lazy eye wading deep into the bog four straight nights. He wandered aimlessly about, then seemed to chase someone or something that wasn't there. Each night, when he finally stopped running, the sharpened stake was in his hand.
Wenton S. Blight, head of the Crown's Suspicious Activity List, also known as the S.A.L. or just The List, had marked Muck Sooth as a potential enemy of King Resdinius, back those one hundred and fifty or so years ago.
Blight chronicled the four stakes Muck brought back those four nights. Questioned Muck the last evening, but only received a bucktoothed snarl in reply. Blight called on Nemmy, but Muck Sooth claimed she was unavailable. Some whispered Muck had murdered old Nemmy. On the next night, the fifth night, Blight himself followed Muck into these same swampy lowlands. Muck being no fool, noticed Blight, and scampered away into a silent mist. Blight called out, but the echoing silence was the only response.
Dovi tried to force his mind away from the story's ending, but failed to divert his attention.
Blight did find Bucktoothed Muck Sooth that dubious night, when the mist had finally dissipated. They say it was a scene no man should ever have witnessed. The Keeper of The List stumbled and found himself knee deep in a swamp turned red. There, butchered into five pieces and impaled high upon a tree at the ends of five sharpened stakes, was Bucktoothed Muck Sooth and his lazy eye.
Blight sprinted away and lost his bearings, ending up waist deep in the middle of the swamp. When he had just about given up hope of finding his way out, he heard a small girl's chuckle.
"Hello? Who's there? Can you help me?" called out Blight.
Surfacing from beneath the murky muck, just in front of poor Blight, was a small girl, in a small black dress, holding a sharpened stake. Red lips curled upon a small pale face. She raised a finger to her small mouth and whispered, "shhhhh." She raised the stake and held it to Blight's forehead, then laughed and faded away. Terror stricken, Blight fled Muck Gully that night and raced back to Wroughton Grove.
A crazed, hysterical Blight rounded up some Kingsmen and broke down Nemmy's front door. There, was poor old Nemmy, impaled with a stake through her forehead, hanging at the top of the grand staircase. The body still dripped to the floor below- onto a sodden, blood-soaked dress.
Wenton S. Blight was never the same after the incident, as folks politely called it. Blight claimed every night, when the clock struck three, a small girl in a small, bloody dress lifted a finger to her mouth at the foot of his bed, and whispered "shhhhh." Tired of hearing folks call him daft, Blight, who now had a lazy eye himself, left Wroughton Grove and was never heard from again.
Goosebumps iced up Dovi's arms. Shoulders creeped up to nearly touch his lobes. Why do I have such a destructive-
Footsteps splashed in the distance beyond some heavy underbrush. Dovi's head snapped up as a piercing shriek echoed high in the sky. Griffin, with a rider. Kingsman?
The aerial team pivoted and dove closer to the wetlands. The rider smoothly stood in the stirrups and loosed two arrows over a stand of leather-leafed pumpkin ash. In immediate response, a burst of shimmering, silver lights streaked up from behind the trees.
Mother of Mercy. A Maege? Could it be...
The incandescent silver trail hovered, then morphed into four blazing birds. They flashed towards the griffin. The rider had anticipated the attack and turned the great beast down and to his left. Two avian furies sailed harmlessly past and dissipated, but the other two found their mark. The griffin roared out in pain as one pulsing charge fired into its flank. The other flamed across its right wing. Man and beast spun into a panicked fall. Just before reaching the treetops, the mount righted itself, turned and flew awkwardly back towards Wroughton Grove.
Could it have been a Rhistmaege? But they were just fairy tales. Tapping into Earned Wit, like they learned in school, was nothing compared to what he had just witnessed. His pulse pounded, but he knew better than to seek out a possibly wounded Rhistmaege. Injured by a Kingsman?
Dovi pushed down reckless thoughts and rose to his feet. Better to be out of Muck Gully before whoever is out there gets wind of me.
Dovi half swift-walked and half ran recklessly through the marshlands, before finally arriving at Beaconwick Pointe crossroads. He huffed his way to a four way intersection. Three weedy paths linked his family's farm with two other farms and the last was a rutted wagon path leading back towards Wroughton Grove.
He had forgotten about his fears of going home. His legs began to shake. Breath seized in his chest. Tears rolled down his narrow cheeks. The bastard caught him again. Damn him.
Dovi eyed the old wood signpost staked drunkenly to the left at Beaconwick Pointe. Macabre Farm. Swifthand Horselands. Bernbell's Eggery.
A small wood sign dangled by a rusty chain on the arrow pointed towards his house. Each letter etched upon the wood sign seared Dovi to the bone. I hope he burns for this.
An image of his father's bloated, sun baked body floating belly up in Ripplewhip Pond. If only...
He pulled the chain off the post and mouthed the words etched upon the wood placard. "I pissed myself" "I shame my family".
Dovi knew what this meant. He would wear the sign to school tomorrow. He dropped heavily to his knees. Balled fists pummeled the hard path, leaving sandy blood upon his knuckles. I hate him.