On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness

  Tink, hunkered over, paid them no mind. He was investigating something on the ground, but then he heard it too.

  A crashing noise came from the forest, the sound of something large and moving fast. Leeli and Janner were too terrified to move. They saw through the knot of trees a dark creature the size of a horse—bounding directly toward Tink.

  Janner had heard Podo speak of toothy cows, and he had read a description of one in one of Oskar’s books.1 Janner knew from the creature’s size and speed that the dark beast now only a few yards away from his little brother was the same.

  Tink had no way of outrunning it.

  He whipped his head around in time to see the fearsome cow bearing down on him, its long teeth bared, its girth trembling.

  Janner, Leeli, and Nugget sat frozen with fear, unable to move and yet unable to take their eyes away from the sight of Tink’s impending death. Leeli started to scream but Janner clapped a hand over her mouth and pulled her to the grass, behind the wall of the house. He didn’t want her to see, and Tink was simply too far away to be helped. If she screamed, the toothy cow would make quick work of all three of them. Not even Nugget would make it home.

  So they lay in the tall grass, hearts pounding, waiting with dread for Tink’s final scream.

  But it never came.

  They heard the cow skid to a halt, followed by a scraping, snuffling sound. Then came a low grumble that wasn’t at all the sound one would expect from a monster feasting on a boy. Janner closed his eyes and tried to sort out what he was hearing. He didn’t want to risk being seen by the creature, but the faintest hope that Tink might be alive fluttered in his heart. He could stand it no longer. Janner held a finger up to his lips and moved ever so slowly to peek around the corner.

  The beast was standing on its hind legs, scratching and nosing at the tree.

  Toothy cows, it seemed, were not good climbers.

  Janner breathed a long sigh of relief. “He’s okay,” he whispered. “I don’t know how he did it, but he’s okay. He climbed the tree before it got him.” Leeli sighed and smiled at Nugget, who licked her face and wagged his tail. “Stay quiet,” Janner whispered. “We have to wait until it leaves.”

  Janner peeked again and saw the toothy cow give one last swipe at the trunk of the tree before lumbering back into the woods with a moo of discontent. A long moment passed. Janner scanned the tree line, praying to the Maker that Tink was unharmed.

  Suddenly, Tink’s head appeared upside down from the upper branches of the tree. He waved at Janner, who waved in return, unable to repress a smile.

  “He’s okay, Leeli. Look.”

  Leeli erupted in giggles at Tink dangling from the tree. It was hard to stay mad at Tink for long.

  “I guess his fear of heights isn’t so bad when something’s about to eat him,” Janner said. He motioned for Tink to come down, but to his amazement, Tink shook his upside-down head.

  “What is he doing?” Janner muttered, remembering how angry he had been at his brother just moments ago. “He almost got killed and he’s still acting like a fool.”

  “Maybe he found something to eat up there,” Leeli suggested.

  “That cow could still be around. We need to get out of here while we can.” Janner eyed the trees suspiciously.

  Tink whistled from the tree and beckoned again for them to join him.

  Unable to believe that he wasn’t running like mad for home, Janner pulled Leeli to her feet, and they moved carefully toward the trees. He marveled at Tink’s ability to coerce him into bad situations. They stood at the foot of the tree, looking up at Tink, but the canopy was so dark, they could barely see his figure in the branches above.

  “Look around on the other side,” Tink whispered, brimming with excitement.

  At first, Janner saw nothing but a vine-covered tree trunk. Then he realized that the leaves and vines were disguising a rope ladder dangling against the tree trunk. Janner’s stomach fluttered at the discovery, and again he was torn between his responsibility and his undeniable urge to find out what was up the ladder, hidden in the leafy branches. He looked, worried, at Leeli.

  “Do you think you can climb?”

  Leeli didn’t reply but answered by leaning her crutch against the tree and patting Nugget on the head. She shinnied up the ladder like she had six good legs, not just one.

  “I’ll be back in a minute, boy,” she whispered down when she had reached the limb where Tink was standing.

  Janner followed after, muttering to himself. “Always causing problems… just once…wish…he’d use his brain…”

  Tink was delighted, standing on a limb about thirty feet in the air, completely unbothered by the height.

  “Tink, aren’t you scared?” Leeli asked.

  “Why?”

  “You’re in the top of a tree!” Janner said.

  Tink blinked at his brother, looked down, and went as white as a cloud. He hugged the nearest branch and closed his eyes tight.

  Leeli shook her head. “Well done, Janner.”

  Immediately filled with regret, Janner tried soothing his brother’s shattered nerves. “Tink, it’s okay. You climbed all the way up here without a problem. We just have to climb back down. Remember the cliffs last week? Remember when you heard the dragon song and you weren’t afraid at all? Be brave like that again. Let go.”

  At the mention of the dragon song a slight change came over Tink—and Janner glimpsed a stronger, different Tink, like Janner had seen at the cliffs. Tink peeled himself from the tree and took a steady breath. He even looked down at the ground and forced a laugh.

  Leeli and Janner exchanged glances.

  “All right,” Janner said. “I’m sure you’re proud of your discovery. Now let’s get down from here and go home.”

  Janner turned to descend the ladder.

  “Wait!” Tink smiled again. Before Janner could protest, Tink edged out farther onto a fat limb and pushed a leafy branch out of the way.

  “Take a look at this,” he said as he stepped aside.

  Beyond the leaves swayed a bridge of wood planks suspended by ropes stretching to the next tree. Through the branches they could see yet another bridge leading from that tree to the next one, and so on, deeper into the shadowy leaves of Glipwood Forest.

  “This is how he gets to his tree house without having to worry about the forest critters,” Leeli said.

  “This must have taken years,” Janner said slowly, with awe. Janner and Tink gazed at the bridges, aching to explore the forest from the heights of the trees. But not with Leeli. Janner didn’t see how she could cross the bridges with a crutch even if she wanted to come, which he doubted.

  “Leeli—” Janner said, but she cut him off.

  “I’ll need my crutch.”

  Her brothers looked at her with surprise. “Well, I can’t go traipsing through the forest without it, can I?”

  Breaking into a grin, Tink scurried down the ladder, retrieved the crutch, and scrambled back up.

  Janner didn’t like it, but he was once again as curious as his brother. Why does this keep happening? he thought.

  Gripping the ropes that stretched across what seemed a sea of leaves and branches—and land far beneath, Tink inched out onto the bridge. He reached the drooping middle, bounced a little, and nodded. Janner had Leeli go before him, and she was surprisingly agile and able. Before long all three Igibys were strolling from bridge to bridge, climbing with confidence through the limbs of the trees in between.

  Now and then they saw curious fazzle doves watching them pass. Below, the toothy cow, or one like it, trudged through the glipwood trees with a dead cave blat in its maw. The forest was boiling with life, both below and above them. Janner suddenly felt like an intruder, some rude houseguest who had entered without permission.

  The bridges zigzagged for what seemed like miles before they came to a fork. Two bridges angled off into the leafy canopy in different directions. Tink stopped high in the arms of a sweeping oak, an
d Leeli and Janner sat for a moment to rest.

  Janner was about to suggest that they start back. Who knew how far into the woods Peet’s tree house was? And even if they found it, he was beginning to wonder how Peet would feel about trespassers.

  “Leeli, are you sure we can trust him?” Janner wasn’t so confident. True, Peet had saved Leeli and maybe saved all of them from the Fangs before that, but he still seemed crazy. “You don’t think he’ll be upset with us if he finds us…or if we find him?”

  “I saw his eyes.” She smiled, staring at the memory of it. “He won’t hurt us; you’ll see.”

  “Still, I think we’ve come far enough. We shouldn’t even be here,” Janner said.

  “You guys don’t have anything to eat, do you?” Tink asked.

  A voice from behind them scared all three Igiby children out of their wits: “Perhaps you could join me for broiled rump of snapping diggle.”

  There in the middle of the bridge, with the ratty knitted stockings pulled up to his elbows, stood Peet the Sock Man. A skinned diggle carcass dangled from one socked hand.

  He bowed low and smiled at the children.

  “Would you like to see my castle?”

  34

  Peet’s Castle

  The boys stood as still as stones, but Leeli stepped forward. She limped out onto the bridge and stopped in front of Peet. White hair wild, face smudged with dirt, he stood there unmoving, gazing at her. His eyes were deep and blue, and they shone like jewels.

  At once, Janner knew that somehow beneath the stench and beyond the strangeness, Peet the Sock Man was full of goodness. His eyes were so deep and so peaceful, Janner even began to believe that maybe Peet wasn’t crazy at all.

  The rope bridge creaked in the silence as they stared at one another.

  “Hello, Mister Peet,” Leeli said after a moment. “I’d love to come to your castle again.” She reached out to his face and he stood frozen, a skittish animal about to spring. “Did something happen to your lip? It’s swollen.”

  Peet shook his head slowly, staring blankly at her.

  Janner cleared his throat.

  Peet blinked and looked up with surprise. “Yes, well then. Hello. Follow me patee-tee-teeee.” He whirled around and strode away, leaving the Igibys no choice but to follow in stunned silence.

  After six more creaking bridges, they saw the tree house where Podo had found Leeli four days earlier. It was cradled in the boughs of the largest tree they had yet seen, towering twenty feet higher than the bridge that led them to it. The structure looked to have been made from the old lumber of fallen houses that littered the meadows near Glipwood. The planks were of mismatched grains and shapes, but arranged and nailed together neatly. Green-leafed branches cast quiet shadows on the sides of the little building and made it look to Janner as sturdy and welcoming as The Only Inn. There were even windows in Peet’s tree castle.

  The last bridge led to a thick, winding limb that was worn from much traffic and had no rope railing. Peet ambled across the limb without a thought, but it was too precarious for Leeli to cross with her crutch.

  Peet turned back and noticed this, gasping. He bounded back, swept up Leeli, and carried her across in one fluid motion. Neither Tink nor Janner received such service, but they crossed without trouble.

  Another rope ladder on the other side of the trunk led up to a trap door in the floor of the tree house through which Peet was already helping Leeli. The boys scrambled up and into Peet’s castle in the trees.

  Peet was humming as he tore the diggle carcass into pieces and dropped them into a pot.

  Leeli made herself at home and sat cross-legged on the floor against the wall.

  “Come in, young men, come in. Diggle cooking, rumple eating, diggle diggle rump food,” he said in a singsong voice.

  Tink and Janner climbed into the tree house and sat next to Leeli, who wore a very satisfied expression on her face. She looked up at Peet and gestured to her brothers. “Mister Peet, these are my broth—”

  “Janner and Tink, Tanner and Jink, Jinker and Tan, Janker and Teeeeen,” Peet said without looking up from the pot.

  “But—how did you know our names?” Janner asked.

  “Small town, boys. Crazy people hear lots of things, Wigiby,” Peet said.

  “It’s Igiby,” Tink said.

  Peet shrugged and lit a small bundle of sticks and moss that sat in a crude fireplace beneath the pot. The fireplace was lined with stones, and above it he had fashioned a chimney of sorts from some kind of hide sewn together to make a tube.

  Janner was impressed by Peet’s ingenuity—that is, until the tree house filled with smoke. Peet didn’t seem to notice.

  Tink coughed. “Mister, uh, Peet the Sock Man, sir, aren’t you worried that your house will catch fire?”

  Peet fished a leather pouch from a small box beside him and sprinkled some of its contents into the pot. A delicious smell rose from the pot and mingled with the smoke.

  “Worried? Not at all, young Wingiby.” He pointed through the nearest window and the children could see three nearby trees whose branches were charred and leafless in places. “I’ve burned down my castle three times before, and I’ve always survived. I’m not borried a wit. Worried a bit.” He went back to stirring the pot. “But this time I think I figured out the problem, see, problem, see, problem, see,” he sang with a wink. “Rocks. See these rocks? They don’t catch fire. Nope.” He coughed and for the first time noticed the smoke filling the room. “Eeep!” he cried. Peet tugged on a piece of twine that dangled from the chimney tube, and the smoke slowly cleared. “Open the flue, open the flue, open the flue for me and for you.”

  Janner began to rethink his opinion of Peet. He was as crazy as a moonbird.

  Peet dropped the diggle carcass into the boiling water and turned to the children. He sized the three of them up, particularly the brothers. His lips were moving, and he was absently scratching his flurry of hair with one socked hand. The pot began to steam and Tink’s stomach rumbled.

  Peet looked at him, and a flash of pain came over his face. “Hungry, are you, Tink?” he murmured. “Of course, you are.”

  Janner could see the stack of leather-bound books Leeli had mentioned beside an old trunk against the opposite wall. Something about them tickled at the back of his mind.

  “So…do we call you Peet?” Janner asked, fishing for more answers to his mounting questions. “Is that your real name?”

  The Sock Man stirred the boiling pot with a long wooden spoon and didn’t answer.

  The Igibys stared at him in an awkward silence.

  “What’s a real name?” Peet said finally. He pointed the spoon at Janner. “Is Janner Igiby your real name?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Is it?” Peet said, turning back to his cooking.

  Tink could think of nothing but food. After several minutes of watching Peet fuss over the stew, he cleared his voice. “Is that almost finished, sir?”

  Peet raised the spoon to his lips and tasted the broth. He nodded, then produced four wooden bowls from a crate and ladled the stew into them, smacking his lips. They ate in a silence punctuated only by Tink’s and Peet’s occasional grunts of pleasure. Janner was surprised to find that snapping diggle was delicious.

  “Now, little Dinglefigs—”

  “Igibys,” Tink corrected again, through a mouthful of meat.

  “—Iggyfeathers, whatever.” Peet grew serious and sat up straight. “I thank you for your kindness and your visitation.” His face darkened. “However, I must ask that you never, never, ever come here again.” His voice cracked and he sank to the floor. “You cannot visit me. I tell smerrible. I smell terrible. You sweet birds could be eaten by a dapping sniggle—snapping diggle, flapping figgle, Igibys. Or a toothy cow! Oh, the horror. And I might be dangerous—I hight murt you—might hurt you without meaning to, you see. I—”

  Peet stopped short and cocked his head to one side, listening. He shrieked and leapt to his
feet, but his head smashed into the low ceiling. Unsteady from the blow, he staggered, a socked hand lifted to his head.

  “Something…outside! ” he breathed, and collapsed in a heap. The children stared with shock at the figure on the floor, all lanky limbs and white hair. Then they heard a whine from below them.

  “Nugget!” Leeli cried, and she scrambled over to the trapdoor. Nugget was looking up at her from the foot of the tree, wagging his tail. “He found us!” Leeli said, then panicked. A creature of the wood could have gobbled him up! “We have to get him up here!” she insisted.

  With a careful scan of the forest below, Janner climbed down the ladder and managed to carry up the little dog under one arm.

  Peet was still unconscious but didn’t look hurt. In fact, he appeared to be taking a happy afternoon nap.

  Just let him sleep,” Tink said. “He wanted us to leave anyway.” Tink slurped up the last of his bowl. “Snapping diggle stew,” he declared. “Who could have guessed it would be this good?”1

  Janner crept past Peet to the pile of books in the corner.

  “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Leeli said.

  Janner shushed her. “I just want to have a look.”

  He crawled over to the pile and slipped out one volume. He opened it, and Tink and Leeli saw him gasp and look at Peet with wonder.

  Peet stirred.

  Quickly, Janner slid the book back into place and scooted back to where he had been sitting.

  Tink and Leeli questioned Janner with their eyes, but he shook his head, then cleared his throat and said loudly, “We should go.”

  The Sock Man groaned and sat up, rubbing his head.

  “Bye, Mister Peet.” Janner was extra polite. “Thanks for the food.”

  “That’s what? What’s that? Food?” Peet’s eyes widened. “Something’s out there!” he shrieked. He leapt to his feet and crashed into the ceiling again. “Ouch!” He staggered about with a socked hand on his head.

  “It’s all right, Mister Peet,” Leeli soothed. “That was just my dog, Nugget. Remember little Nugget?” Leeli scratched the dog’s chin.