Bess supposed she half understood. She and Laurel felt the same about music and, while they weren’t much for sitting around chatting with someone like Mrs. Runion, they saw nothing odd about making a two-mile hike up some bush road to spend the afternoon and evening listening to some old fellow scratch out tunes on his fiddle, or maybe rasp his way through one of the old ballads.
Music was something that needed to be passed along, too. Or at least the old songs and tunes did.
“She hasn’t seen Mrs. Runion for a couple of weeks,” Bess said, “so it’s a good bet she’ll stop in today.”
Laurel nodded. “Will you listen to that fiddler play.”
“I haven’t heard a tune I know yet,” Bess said.
“I just can’t imagine who it would be, out in our woods like this.”
Bess laughed. “Maybe it’s one of Aunt Lillian’s fairy people.”
“You’d think Janey would have grown out of those stories by now.”
“You’d think, but you’d be wrong.”
They reached the woods and followed a deer trail that wound back and forth up the side of the hill. With each step they took, the fiddling grew louder, and they marveled at the player’s skill. The bass strings resonated, rich and full. The notes drawn from the high strings skirled up among the turning leaves into the autumn sky. There was so much rhythm in the playing that adding a guitar or a banjo wasn’t even necessary.
Grinning at each other, they hurried forward. Finally they knew they were almost upon the fiddler and they vibrated with anticipation. The trail they followed took them into a clearing, and there in the middle, where this path crossed another, stood the oddest little man.
He was maybe three feet tall and looked like a walking shrub, a bark and leafy man playing a fiddle almost half the size of himself. They couldn’t tell where the wood of his instrument ended and his limbs began. He seemed to have moss and leaves for hair, gnarly twigs for fingers—but oh, how they pulled the tune from his fiddle.
He stopped playing at their sudden arrival and the three of them looked at each other for a long moment, none of them speaking, none of them moving or so much as even breathing.
This can’t be right, Bess thought. She knew that such a fiddler couldn’t possibly exist, but her head was too clouded and fuzzy to feel alarmed. Beside her, Laurel appeared to be just as spellbound.
It was something in the music, a faraway part of Bess’s mind whispered. That, she was sure, was the source of the spell.
Belatedly, she was also aware that the spot where the two deer trails met might well be considered a crossroads, and there were any number of stories about the sorts of people you met at a crossroads. Like Old Bubba, ready to trade you the gift of music for your soul as he had with Robert Johnson. The fiddler didn’t look like Old Bubba himself, but she wouldn’t be surprised if a body came walking up and told her he was some kind of devil man.
Oh, danger, danger, the little voice in her head whispered, but she couldn’t seem to move, never mind run away.
“So you like music?” the little man said.
As soon as he spoke, Bess found she could breathe again. She didn’t trust her legs to carry her far, but at least she could breathe.
“We love music,” Laurel said.
“And play it, too, by the looks of those cases.”
“We play some.”
“Just exactly what are you?” Bess asked.
“A fiddler, what did you think? Get out your instruments and we’ll play us a tune.”
“I don’t know that we should,” Bess said softly to her sister as they laid their cases on the ground. “There’s something not right here.”
Laurel shrugged. “We’re just seeing that Aunt Lillian didn’t make up all those stories of hers that Janey keeps telling us.”
“I figure we should be feeling a little more scared than I am.”
“What? Of him? He’s not much bigger than a minute.”
“But he’ll be magic. It was magic brought us here.”
Laurel shook her head. “Wasn’t magic brought me—it was music.”
“Same difference,” Bess said.
“I tell you what,” the little man said, either ignoring their whispered conversation or not hearing it. “Why don’t we make us a bargain? If the two of you can play me a tune I’ve never heard before, I’ll grant you one wish, whatever it is you want.”
“And if we can’t?” Laurel asked.
“Then you come away with me,” the little man told them.
“How do we know you can deliver?” Laurel asked.
“What do you lose to find out? A bright pair of girls like you must know a thousand tunes.”
Bess pulled at Laurel’s arm when she realized that Laurel was actually considering the little man’s bet. Her sister had to be more deeply snared by his magic than she was to even think of agreeing to this.
“This is stupid,” she said. “Nobody ever wins this sort of thing.”
“It seems pretty straightforward to me,” Laurel said.
“It is,” the little man said. “But it has to be done here, and it has to be done now.”
“Laurel,” Bess began.
But her sister shook her head. “This is a sure thing. If we can’t play him a tune he doesn’t know, we deserve to be taken away.” She turned to the little man. “You’re on, mister. Get that wish ready.”
She unbuckled the clasps of her fiddle case, lifted the lid, then shot an angry glance at the little man. All that was in her case were stones wrapped in a few T-shirts. Her fiddle was gone.
“That’s cheating,” she said.
Bess quickly opened her own case to find that her banjo was gone as well, replaced by similar stones wrapped in T-shirts.
“Forfeit,” the little man said. “Now you come with me.”
“No,” Laurel said. “You cheated. What did you do with our instruments?”
“I did nothing to them.”
“Then lend me yours.”
“Of course.”
He handed over his fiddle but there were so many little vines and twigs and leaves growing out of it that Laurel could barely get a note out of a string by plucking it. Bowing was out of the question.
The little man snatched his instrument back and stowed it away in a bag that was lying on the ground by his feet. He put his bow in after, then tied up the sack and slung it over his shoulder.
“No more dawdling,” he said. “Come along.”
He held out a hand to each of them.
The twins began to back away, but he was quick and far stronger than he looked. He grabbed each by an arm.
“You’re a lying cheat!” Laurel cried.
She aimed a kick at him but it hurt her toe through her running shoe more than it seemed to hurt him.
“I don’t lie and I don’t cheat,” the little man said.
He said something else in a language neither girl could understand. They both grew dizzy, but before they could fall, the little man pulled them away, out of the world they knew and into his own. A moment later, all that remained at the crossroads were two open instrument cases filled with stones.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ruth and Grace
hy’d they go into the woods?” Grace said when she’d stopped laughing. “They could just as easily play around here.”
“Because this way they won’t have us bugging them.”
“They think,” Grace said.
“They dream.”
“I can’t wait to see their faces when they open those cases of theirs.”
Ruth shot her a big grin.
Jumping to their feet, the pair ran downstairs and outside. Playing Indian scout as they followed the older twins was way more fun than cleaning house. They hid behind clumps of milkweed and tall grasses and Joe Pye weed, darting from one to the next, trying hard not to giggle too loudly and give themselves away.
“There sure are a lot of hornets around today,” Ruth said as they reached t
he deer trail their sisters had taken.
“Those aren’t hornets, they’re bees.”
“Whatever.”
“But you’re right,” Grace agreed. “There are lots of them. There’s probably a nest nearby.”
“Hive.”
Grace stuck out her tongue. “Whatever.”
They’d heard a fiddle play the whole time they’d been crossing the fields. Here in the woods it was louder, but it didn’t do the same for them as it had for Laurel and Bess. Pure, simple curiosity pulled them along the trail.
“Looks like they’re planning to have a hooley in the woods,” Ruth said.
Grace nodded. “Probably with a bunch of those old coots they’re always playing with.”
“Martin’s not an old coot. I think he’s handsome.”
“But he plays the fiddle.”
“Lots of nice people play the fiddle.”
“Name one.”
“Laurel.”
“She doesn’t count. She’s our sister.”
“Well, how about—”
“Shh!”
Ruth fell silent, realizing what Grace already had: They were too close to keep nattering on the way they were.
The fiddling had stopped and they could hear voices. They crept along the path until it opened into a small meadow, and then they stood there with their mouths agape, staring at the little man with the fiddle that their older sisters had come to meet. Finally, Grace tugged on Ruth’s arm, pulling her down, out of sight behind a bush. The two girls looked at each other, eyes wide.
“That… man,” Ruth said in a voice that was barely a whisper. “He can’t be real… can he?”
Grace shook her head.
“But there he is all the same,” she said just as quietly.
“And Laurel and Bess know him. Came to meet him in the woods and all.”
“I don’t think they know him. Listen.”
They heard Laurel make her bargain with the man. When she and Bess laid down their cases, Grace began to shiver.
“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she said, burrowing her face in Ruth’s shoulder.
Ruth looked over her sister’s head, understanding immediately. Playing that trick with the older twins’ instruments wasn’t funny anymore. It wasn’t funny at all.
And then… then the little man pulled their two sisters away into thin air. They were there one moment, gone the next, as though they’d all stepped behind an invisible curtain.
Ruth pressed her cheek against Grace’s, trying hard not to cry because Grace was doing enough for the both of them. She held Grace close, trying to breathe slowly like Mama said they should do when they felt upset. “People forget to breathe,” she’d say, “and then they can’t think straight anymore. They get mad when they should be patient. Or do something stupid when they could have been smart.”
“Breathe, breathe,” she said to Grace.
Slowly she could feel the panic ebb a little. She sat back and held Grace at arm’s length to see that her sister was getting a hold of herself as well.
“That… that was real… wasn’t it?” Grace finally said.
Ruth had to swallow before she replied. “Looks like.”
“It’s my fault. They could’ve played rings around that little man.”
“You didn’t know.”
“It’s still my fault.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Ruth said. “All that matters now is that we figure out a way to get them back.”
Grace nodded. “I wish Janey was here.”
“Me, too.”
Janey wasn’t the oldest, but she knew all the stories. She got them from Aunt Lillian and was happy to pass them along to anyone who wanted to listen, which, in the Dillard family, pretty much only meant their older sister Elsie, who liked them, and Mama, who always seemed to have the time to listen to anything any one of them had to say.
Ruth stood up. “Come on,” she said. “We can at least look for clues.”
“Clues? Suddenly we’re detectives?”
“You know what I mean.”
She walked into the meadow with Grace trailing after her. They touched the instrument cases with the toes of their shoes and walked all around the spot where the little man and their sisters had disappeared, but there was nothing to see.
“I guess we have to go home and get Mama to help,” Ruth said.
Grace gave a glum nod.
They turned to the instrument cases, meaning to close them up and bring them along, when they realized that they were no longer alone.
Right where the deer trail came out of the woods stood another little man. But where the one who had kidnapped their sisters looked like a piece of a tree that decided to go for a walk, this one seemed more human. If you discounted his size. And the fact that he had virtually no neck. His round ball of a head seemed to sit directly on the round ball of his body. And then there were the wings—almost as big as him, fluttering rapidly at his back.
He looked, Ruth decided, a lot like a bee, what with the shape of his body and the wings and the fact that his shirt and trousers were all yellow and black stripes. She remembered all the bees they’d noticed on the way to this place. Were they all some kind of weird were-bees? She gave the meadow a quick study, but other than the fact that there seemed to be more bees than usual, the little man appeared to be on his own.
“Well, now,” the little man said. “The ’sangman got your sisters, and that made us even, but now we’ve got you, so we’re ahead again.”
Grace stooped and picked up one of the stones from Laurel’s fiddle case.
Ruth quickly followed suit. Oddly enough, she didn’t feel scared. She just felt angry now. Breathe, she started to tell herself, but then she realized she didn’t want to stop being angry.
“What?” she asked. “Are you on some kind of sick scavenger hunt?”
The bee man gave her a puzzled look.
“Because if you are—” Grace said. “If you think you’re taking us anywhere, we’ll knock your brains right out of your head.”
She hefted the stone she was holding to show him she meant business.
He held his hands up. “No, no. You can’t do that. You’re my captives.”
“Not likely,” Grace said.
But Ruth heard a buzzing and now Grace did, too. The bees that had been flying about the meadow earlier were all hovering nearby now. And not just a handful, but hundreds and hundreds of them.
“I don’t think we have enough stones,” Ruth said. “Not to hit them all.”
“Probably not,” Grace replied. “But we can hit him.”
“You don’t want to do that,” the bee man said. “Please. You need to calm down. No one will hurt you if you’ll just come along quietly.”
“We don’t want to go anywhere,” Ruth said.
“But you don’t have any choice.”
“Where do you want to take us?” Grace asked.
“Yeah, and why?” Ruth added.
“You’re hostages, nothing more.”
Ruth shook her head. “You don’t want to mess with us,” she said. “We’ve got a big brother, you know, and he’s killed thirteen giants.”
“No, you don’t,” the bee man said.
“Yes, we do,” Grace said. “He’s tall and fierce and he eats bees like candy. Eats them by the handful.”
“He eats bee sandwiches,” Ruth added. “And bee soup.”
“Bee stew and deep-fried bees.”
“And he loves fat little bee men best of all.”
“You don’t have a brother,” the bee man said. “Why would you pretend that you do?”
“Why are we supposed to be your hostages?” Grace asked.
“Yeah,” Ruth said. “And what are we being hostaged for?”
“I don’t think that’s a word,” Grace said.
“He knows what I mean.”
“Your sister has the ’sangman prince,” the bee man said, “and we need something to trade to her for h
im.”
“So trade yourself.”
“Or some of your bees,” Grace added.
“And,” the bee man went on, “if we didn’t take you, the ’sangmen would. So you’re actually safer with us.”
“What are these ’sangmen?” Ruth asked. “Are they like the weird little guy who grabbed our sisters just now?”
The bee man nodded. “They’re evil, rooty creatures.”
“And you’re just a bundle of sunshine and joy,” Grace said.
“At least we don’t take children of the light and put them in a dark hole.”
“I think you’re making this all up,” Ruth said. “I think the two of you are in cahoots. You and this singsong man.”
“ ’Sangman.”
“Don’t you start correcting me,” Ruth told him. “You’re not family.”
“You’re in danger,” the bee man tried.
“Oh, right. Like we need to be protected from these singsong men.”
“Whatever they think they are,” Grace put in.
“When what we really need is to be protected from you and your little buzzy friends.”
“I think we should bop him with a stone and take our chances,” Grace said.
“They’ve already stolen two of you,” the bee man said, “and put a glamour on your sister so that she thinks she needs to help them.”
“Which sister?” Ruth asked.
“Probably Els—”
Grace was cut off by the jab of Ruth’s elbow in her side.
“Remember in the war movies,” Ruth said. “Name, rank, and serial number. That’s all we’re supposed to give the enemy.”
Grace nodded and looked at the bee man.
“I’m Grace, daughter number six,” she said.
Ruth shook her head. “You just love to rub in that you were born one minute earlier, don’t you?”
“I’m not your enemy,” the bee man said. “Please believe me.”
“At least he’s polite,” Ruth said. “For a kidnapper and all.”
“If you’ll just come with me, the queen will explain everything.”
“Oh, now he’s got a queen,” Grace said.
“Well, he is a bee man. I wonder what it’s like to live in a hive.”
“Very noisy, I’d say.”