The wind was blowing. The leaves were turning on the Summer Tree. These were bad signs.
As he neared the gate, Lukas heard someone call his name, and he looked up to see Paul running his way. The smaller boy had a gang of middles trailing him. He always had three or four of them hanging around anywhere he went, ready to help him get into whatever spot of mischief he had planned for the day. Though he was an elder and an excellent scout, Paul was a born troublemaker. Most of the time his jests were harmless, but every now and again he would push it too far, and most recently he’d caught and jarred a kobold. He’d obviously intended it as some sort of joke, hoping to use it to spoil someone’s milk or force it to teach him a charm or two. But if he’d actually managed to smuggle the little creature in, it could have been disastrous for the entire village. Such a thing was strictly forbidden—none but New Hameliners were allowed inside. Not even the Peddler was allowed in. No exceptions.
Paul had been taken off scouting duty after that and confined to the village. He would not be allowed to venture beyond the gate until Emilie relented. Really, she was just asking for more trouble, as the worst thing you could do was to shut Paul in, but Emilie was Eldest Girl and once she had made up her mind, there was no changing it.
“What is it, Paul?” Lukas asked as the shorter boy caught up with him. “I’m on my way to the gate. Didn’t you hear the bell?”
“Sure, I heard it,” said Paul. “But I have something very important to show you and it can’t wait. Something I invented!” The boy was holding a pig’s bladder in his hands. It looked full.
“Are you trying to tell me that you created a water skin? Because we have enough of those already.”
“Of course I didn’t invent the water skin,” said Paul. “But I have invented a new use for it. Watch!” At once, Paul clutched his stomach and began to moan. He bent over as if in pain, and for a second Lukas considered calling for help. But then again, this was Paul.
“Ah, my gut!” moaned the boy. “Too many figs with breakfast…feel that I might…”
Then he let out a loud, ripping fart. Or at least it sounded like a fart. Lukas saw that Paul had stuck the bladder full of air beneath his arm and squeezed it, making a pitch-perfect farting sound. The children around him burst into laughter.
Lukas couldn’t help but smile himself. It really did sound like a fart.
Paul stood up and took a bow. “Do you know what I’m going to do?” he asked Lukas with a wink. “I’m going to slip this under Emilie’s chair cushion before the next meeting of the Elders! Can you imagine their faces when the Eldest Girl lets out an enormous fart just as she’s calling the meeting to order?”
That would be a sight to see. But Lukas wouldn’t want to cross Emilie. The girl could make Paul’s life hell for years to come. Longer, even. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Paul.”
“Ah, what fun are you, Eldest Boy?”
Lukas scowled at the title, but then the wind picked up again, and this time there was no denying the chill. Paul had felt it, too, and the wry grin melted from the boy’s face. “It’s getting colder, isn’t it?”
“I think so,” said Lukas. “And the Summer Tree’s yellowing.”
“It’ll be tonight or tomorrow at the latest, then,” said Paul. “Check the forest to be sure.”
“Finn’s at the gate,” said Lukas. “I’m on my way there now.”
“You’ll have your hands full,” said Paul. “Any chance Emilie will let me have my bow back? I could be of use.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well then,” sighed Paul. “There’s only one thing for it. Emilie gets the fart bag!”
With that, Paul turned and marched off, his little group of middles nipping at his heels like a pack of wolf cubs. Paul was going to be a problem so long as Emilie kept him cooped up. Leon would have known how to keep the boy out of trouble, but Lukas wasn’t Leon. Or Marc. It wasn’t long ago that Lukas would have chased after Paul, laughing along with the rest. He might actually have helped Paul do his mischief.
But Lukas had responsibilities now, the same ones the man in his dream had been lecturing him about. Eldest Boy. Captain of the Watch. Lukas tried to shake it away. Dreams could be dangerous on the Summer Isle. Dreams led you astray.
Lukas’s mood had only grown more sour by the time he reached the gate, and he didn’t bother to hide his scowl as the other boys of the Watch saluted him. He climbed the tall ladder to the south tower bell, which looked out over the gate wall that encircled their entire village. Its foundation was mostly piled stones, but the wall’s sturdy timbers were dug deep into the earth and reached thirty feet high, topped with a fence of thorn-wood branches ringed by a walking platform. From up there, the Watch could see for miles. Beyond the gate, the Peddler’s Road snaked past New Hamelin into the Shimmering Forest, where, even at midday, floating lights could be seen in the shade, blinking like wreaths of twinkling stars. A beautiful place, but dangerous for the unwary. As dangerous as any place outside the village, but nice enough to look at when one needed to pass the long hours on duty. To the north, treacherous mountains loomed over everything. The Peddler’s Road stretched even that far, though no one other than the Peddler himself walked it. Gnomes used to come down from the mountains to trade ore for the village’s woodcrafts, but that was long ago.
Travelers of any kind were uncommon these days, except for the Peddler. The wilds had grown too perilous for anyone else.
Lukas found Finn waiting for him atop the tower. It was cramped inside, and Lukas had to bend his head or else crack it against the low ceiling. “Took you long enough,” said Finn as Lukas joined him at the window. “Dreaming of Emilie, perhaps?”
“Bite your tongue off!” said Lukas. “Unless you want to conjure me more nightmares.”
The bell ringer on duty was a small, red-faced boy named Pidge, and though the boy pretended not to hear what his elders were saying, Lukas could feel his own ears getting red with embarrassment. He needed to change the conversation away from Emilie, and quickly.
“So what did you haul me out of bed for?” Lukas asked, though he feared he knew the answer.
“There,” answered Finn, his face growing serious. He gestured to the Shimmering Forest, where patches of yellow were evident among the green trees and were spreading. The leaves of the forest were already turning. By afternoon the forest would be a sea of orange and gold, and by evening those branches would be bare.
“It’ll be tonight, then,” said Lukas. “What’s the status of your scouts?”
“The last team is coming up the road now,” said Finn, and he pointed to a few distant shapes approaching.
“John’s foraging team back already? I’m glad, but I didn’t expect them this soon. Not without Paul scouting the way for them.”
“They’re early.”
Lukas wasn’t upset that the scouts were ahead of schedule. Finn would want his boys to stay out as long as was possible because scouts were a prideful lot, almost to the point of being boastful. But Lukas was Eldest Boy now and Captain. Like it or not, he was responsible for the safety of the entire village, which meant that tonight everyone stayed inside the walls. When the Winter’s Moon was in the sky, the gates opened for no one.
Because if they got inside, the whole village would be lost.
“John sent a runner ahead to warn us,” said Finn. “He’s down at the gate, getting watered.”
“Warn us?” said Lukas. “Warn us about what?”
“That’s the other reason I had Pidge ring the bell for you,” answered Finn. “I would’ve let you get a few hours of sleep at least, but John’s team isn’t coming back alone. They found someone.”
Incredulous, Lukas stared at his friend. “What? More kobolds? He’s as bad as Paul! Everyone knows the rules, and if Emilie catches wind—”
“Not kobolds,” interrupted Finn.
Lukas paused. “Not elves, surely.”
“Not elves, either,” said Finn. ?
??Children. Lukas, they’ve found two children.”
Lukas opened his mouth, only to close it again. What was there to say? Children. How long had it been? How long had it been since Lukas had laid eyes on a child not of New Hamelin? How many hundreds of years?
Carter had been dreaming of pancakes. Which was odd, because he didn’t really care for pancakes. He liked the things you put on top of pancakes—the syrup, strawberries and whipped cream. But he could do without the pancake itself. Something about the texture was just wrong. Yet, in his dream he couldn’t get enough, the doughier the better.
When he finally woke up from the pancake dream and saw that there were no real pancakes in front of him, he was very disappointed until he remembered he didn’t like pancakes. Then his disappointment turned to something closer to fear.
Carter was alone in a tiny wooden room. Not like the wooden room he slept in back at home, plastered over with drywall and paint, but a real wooden room. Made of logs. Like a log cabin, yes, that was what he was in. Or more like a shed, actually. He was lying on the floor on some kind of pallet made of straw, inside a shed made of logs, with no pancakes and no idea how he’d gotten there.
He sat up and examined his surroundings. A stool in the corner held some kind of lamp. It looked like a candle mounted inside a hollowed-out gourd. Through cracks in the wall he could see a gray day outside, and he hugged his arms around himself as he shivered—it was cold enough to see his breath in front of his face. The last thing Carter remembered was his sister shouting something about locking the front door, but hadn’t that been part of the dream, too? And he remembered music, music that promised trees and light and gently flowing streams and warm summer air. Happiness.
And pancakes.
There was a sound outside, and Carter stood up as the door slowly opened. It alarmed him at first, but he felt a small touch of relief when he saw a boy walk in. He was not much older than Carter’s sister, but he was dressed in a strange mix-match of rough cloth and leather, like he’d walked out of a Renaissance fair. An ugly black sword was strapped to his hip. Carter didn’t like the look of that, but at least the boy was smiling.
“Are you thirsty?” the boy asked, holding out a water skin.
“Okay,” said Carter, warily. He was terribly thirsty. The water tasted like leather, but it quenched his thirst.
“I’m Lukas,” said the boy.
“Carter.”
“Are you a ghost?” asked Lukas.
“Wow, I hope not,” said Carter. “Um, can you tell me where I am?”
“You’re in our village. Our scouts found you asleep on a bed of wild furry moss, on the edge of the Shimmering Forest. They tried to wake you, but when you didn’t stir they brought you back here. You slept the whole afternoon away and only just now awoke.”
“Uh, I don’t know what any of that meant, but, I suppose…thanks?”
Lukas studied Carter for a moment. “You don’t know the Shimmering Forest?”
Carter shook his head.
“Then where did you come from? The mountains?”
“New York, originally. But my family and I were traveling abroad.”
“Your clothes are strange.”
“I was going to say the same about you. No offense.”
Lukas almost laughed, Carter could tell, but had caught himself. Lukas slung a pack off his shoulder and set it down on the little stool with a thud. As he untied the drawstrings, Carter began to worry again. What was inside that bag? All at once, every movie he’d ever seen where a prisoner was tortured came to mind. Make them feel comfortable, then surprise them with pain. That was how they did it. Good cop, bad cop.
“What’s that?” Carter asked, taking a step backward.
“You should know,” said Lukas, his voice taking on a strangely formal tone, “that I am the Eldest Boy, Captain of the Watch. If you are a wicked spirit in disguise, now’s your chance to confess it.”
“If I’m a what?”
“It will go easier on you if you do.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Carter. He was sweating now. They were going to torture him, ask him questions about spirits, and he had no answers to give. He didn’t even know what was going on.
Lukas opened the bag and produced…a cowbell. It was crudely shaped and looked like someone’s failed shop-class project, but it was definitely a cowbell.
“What are you going to do with—” But before he could finish, Lukas began clanging the bell in Carter’s face. Bong! Bong! Bong!
“Hey!” cried Carter. “Cut it out!”
“It pains you?” Lukas asked.
“It’s super annoying! You want me to bang that thing next to your ear and see how you like it?”
This time, Lukas didn’t bother holding in his laughter.
“Yes, it is a bothersome sound,” he said. “But evil spirits cannot abide the ringing of bells, nor cold iron. It causes them unimaginable pain. And well, I’m sorry, but we had to be sure.”
“You had to be sure I’m not a spirit?” said Carter.
Lukas set the bell down on the table and studied Carter. “I had a friend like you once,” he said after a moment. “He was lame, too.”
Carter felt his cheeks redden. Lame was not a word that Carter liked. He was not lame in any way. But Lukas’s expression as he said the word remained open, friendly. The boy didn’t seem to mean it as an insult.
“Did you injure your leg in an accident?” asked Lukas.
“No, I was born like this,” said Carter. This, at least, was familiar territory. He was used to having to explain himself to people. Everyone wanted to know; it was just a matter of when they worked up the courage to ask. “I’m club-footed, which means my foot bends out the wrong way. It’s a condition that usually gets better with treatment or surgery. Usually. Guess I’m just unusual.”
“The thing you wear on your foot…”
“It’s a brace.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Lukas. “It’s a tool that helps you walk?”
Carter nodded. “Sorta.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Not really,” said Carter. “You get used to it.”
“You can move around much better with it than my friend could,” said Lukas. “All Timm had was a simple wooden crutch.”
Carter nodded, and tried to smile. He was starting to suspect that this Lukas kid might be cracked in the head. Or maybe Carter had been kidnapped by some kind of insane cult. Maybe they stole kids away as a recruitment strategy and brainwashed them into working in Renaissance fairs for the rest of their lives.
Thinking of kids reminded Carter of someone. “Um, when you found me in the…fuzzy glen or whatever. Did you see my sister there, too?”
At the mention of Carter’s sister, Lukas’s expression grew worried. “She’s your sister?” he asked. Carter nodded.
“Then we need to hurry,” said Lukas. “Her situation is worse than yours. She’s in danger.”
“Danger?” said Carter, suddenly alarmed. He’d been in here listening to cowbells while Max was in trouble?
“People here think her an ill omen.”
“An ill omen? She’s a pain, but she’s not any kind of omen. She’s just my sister.”
Lukas shook his head. “There are queer things about her, but it’s not just that. She woke before you and…she kicked one of the Watch between the legs.”
That sounded like Max.
“And she wears very sturdy shoes,” added Lukas.
Definitely Max.
“We have to hurry,” said Lukas, opening the door. “Daylight is fading, and they will decide soon whether or not to put her outside the gate.”
“What gate?” asked Carter, following him. “What’s that mean?”
“It means that if she’s put outside the gate, she’ll likely die.”
Max was being led through a village of children. There were a few her age, like the boys who were urging her on by spear point,
but most were younger. Some looked as young as four or five, hiding behind the skirts of older girls. In this entire village of dirt streets and ramshackle cottages, Max couldn’t see a single adult. Every face that peered out at her from a window or a doorway belonged to a child. The looks on those faces ranged from curiosity to fear, or were maybe a mixture of both. She supposed she deserved some of it, especially from the leader of the boys pushing her along. She’d reacted hastily when she’d awoken to find him looking down at her, and perhaps kicking him had been a bad introduction.
As they went, Max tried to make a mental map of where she was being led, but the layout of this little village was so haphazard and illogical, she couldn’t tell which way was which. Cottages were crammed up against one another in odd configurations. The structures appeared solidly built, but everywhere she looked there were little touches that served no real purpose: a rope bridge connecting two neighboring windows when it would have been easy enough to simply walk across the street; a house with no door on the first floor, only ladders going up. This was a town dreamed up by children.
Not that it was simply one big playground, far from it. There were well-tended vegetable gardens here and there, and from the smell, Max guessed that livestock were kept nearby. And then there was the wall that fenced it all in. It had to have been thirty feet high, and it circled the entire village. There was nothing whimsical about that structure. A ledge ran along the entire wall, and boys with spears patroled up there. At each corner of the wall stood a tall tower—for lookouts, Max supposed—and while Max watched, a boy leaned out of one of the towers and chased away a few crows who’d been perched up there watching Max’s march through the village.