“Gunnarrrgh!” repeated the giant.
Edgar’s grip was loosening, and he was expecting to fall into the waiting hole at any second, when he heard a creaky voice call, “Over here! Hurry!” Twisting toward the voice, he was astonished to see a flash of light—a torch!
“Hurry!” repeated the voice.
“Gunnarrrgh!” said the giant for a third time. Edgar flung himself forward, landing on the giant’s tongue once more. The great pad of flesh rippled alarmingly as the giant tried to swallow him. Digging his hands into the tongue’s surface, which consisted of pulpy red fibers thick as his wrists and long as his arms, Edgar clung to it like a barnacle to a ship’s bottom.
“Come on, come on!” cried the voice behind the torch. “I can’t hold this out here forever. It’ll make him sneeze, which will almost certainly kill you!”
Reaching forward, Edgar grabbed another handful of tongue and pulled himself along the rough surface. Fighting the motion of the tongue (which was accompanied by disgusting gagging sounds from the giant), he dragged himself hand over hand toward the beckoning torch, which was yards away. He had just reached a wart, wider than a tree stump, when the giant made a last desperate attempt to swallow him. Edgar managed to get himself on the forward side of the wart—toward the teeth and away from the throat—and braced himself against it.
“Gak gak gak!” hacked the giant.
Edgar leaped forward, landing within a foot of the torch. A withered hand reached out to him. He grabbed it thankfully and was pulled into the most astonishing room he had ever seen.
Well, it wasn’t a room, exactly.
It was the inside of one of the giant’s back teeth. But the flickering light of the torch showed that it had been hollowed out to make an area large enough to hold a table and two chairs. The back wall—back being the side toward the giant’s throat—had a niche about six feet long and two feet wide carved into it. The ceiling was low—too low for Edgar to stand at full height—and everything was too close together, giving the room a cramped feeling. That feeling was made worse by the clutter of items that covered both floor and table: cups, plates, knives, pitchforks, shovels, coils of rope, chunks of wood, and an old wagon wheel, among other things.
“Salvage,” wheezed a voice behind him.
Edgar turned and received yet another surprise. His rescuer was a woman. Half a head shorter than Edgar, she had long, stringy gray hair and eyes that burned with fever brightness. Her clothing, of which she had several layers, was an odd mix, some of it coarse homespun, some costly velvet. Nearly all of it was tattered and worn. It hung heavy on her body, as if it was slightly damp.
“By salvage,” said the old woman, “I mean the stuff in the room, not you—though I suppose you might qualify as well. First time since I’ve been here that I’ve actually been able to save someone. Silly things all panic and slide down his gullet before I can do a thing to help them. That was very good, the way you managed to grab on to something. Quick thinking. I like that in a man.”
“Thank you,” said Edgar nervously. He looked around. “How long have you lived here?”
The woman shrugged. “Can’t really say. It’s hard to keep track of the time in here. There’s no sunrise or sunset, no full moon or new, no summer or spring, winter or fall. I keep a calendar now—that’s it, carved in the wall over there. But I don’t know how long I had been here before I started it.” She stroked her hair. “I do know I was young when he took me.” A slightly mournful note colored her voice. “Young and pretty, some thought. And my hair was black as a raven’s wing. At least, that’s what all the boys said. Now come on, ducky. Sit down, sit down. I haven’t had a visitor in . . . well, ever, actually.”
“Then why two chairs?” asked Edgar.
“I live on hope,” replied the woman as she thrust the torch into a bracket carved into the yellow wall. She returned to the table and cleared it with a sweep of her arm. “Sit,” she said, gesturing to the seat opposite her. “Sit.”
Edgar crossed to the table—it took only two steps to reach it—and joined her. He tried to pull the chair away from the table, but found that it was solidly joined to the floor. Only then did he realize it had been carved from the tooth itself.
“It was something to do,” said the woman with a shrug. She flipped her gray hair back over her shoulders and said, “My name is Meagan.”
“And I’m Edgar.”
“Good name,” Meagan replied, nodding in approval.
Edgar smiled. “I seem to owe you my life.”
Meagan arched an eyebrow. “I hadn’t really thought about it that way. But now that you mention it, I suppose you do. Not that it’s much of a life here in the giant’s mouth.”
“How do you live here, anyway?” asked Edgar, glancing around the room once more. “Where do you get your food?”
Meagan shrugged. “I scavenge.”
“Scavenge what?”
“Anything that comes along that doesn’t go down his gullet.” She gestured toward a pickax that leaned against the enamel wall. “I’ve dug bits of meat out of his teeth that would feed a family of ten.”
Edgar shuddered, and decided not to ask what she did for water. He was afraid he already knew the answer. He leaped ahead to the bigger, more important question.
“Have you ever tried to get out?”
“What do I look like?” she asked bitterly. “Of course I’ve tried to get out. I tried every way I could think of. Finally, when it became clear I wasn’t going to make it, I gave up and accepted my fate.” She narrowed her eyes. “You, you come in here and find me waiting to help you—you have no idea what it was like for me when I first got here. No light, no one to explain, no one to talk to, weep with, hold. Just me, alone, in the dark, trying to find a way to survive. Just me in this hole, which back then was barely big enough to hold me, just big enough to keep from getting swallowed. I thought I would die of loneliness. I thought I would die of fear. More than once I considered just flinging myself down the big oaf’s gullet. But that’s not my way, Edgar. I cling to life—cling to it like a leech if I have to. So with every flash of light that came when the giant opened his mouth, I took stock of where I was. With every flash of light, I learned a little more. Many was the hour I spent huddled in this tooth, weeping to myself, wondering what was to become of me. But I didn’t give up. I never gave up. I drank from pools of spit. I snatched passing food. And when I found my first tool, I began to dig, to make myself a home. Chip, chip, chip, I picked away at this tooth.”
She paused, and actually chuckled. “He didn’t like that, I can tell you. Oh, the roars of pain! I thought I would go deaf. And the shaking of his head. First time it nearly killed me. I would have had to give up if I hadn’t managed to grab a piece of leather harness that was tied to an ox he snatched up. Used it to lash myself down. Then it didn’t matter how he shook his head, I was safe.”
She leaned across the table, fixing her glittering, half-mad eyes on Edgar. “Did I try to get out? Of course I tried to get out. But in the end, I made myself a home here. And I’m alive while all the others he swallowed before and after are gone. But even so, it’s lonely here, Edgar. At least, it was. Now you’re here, that will be different.”
“But I’ve got to get out!” cried Edgar.
“Well, be my guest,” she said, gesturing toward the hole through which she had dragged him. “The door is open. Don’t let me stop you.”
“You don’t understand,” groaned Edgar. “I’m supposed to be married next week.”
“That’s very unfortunate,” said Meagan sharply. “But it doesn’t really change things. This is your new home—or, at least it is as long as I choose to share it with you.” Her eyes glittered in the torchlight, and Edgar caught just a hint of menace in her tone. “Don’t forget, I built this place. And it’s barely large enough for one. You could throw me out, I suppose, and take the place for yourself. But you don’t seem the type. Besides, after all the years I’ve survived in here
, I’m about as tough and nasty as they come. So I wouldn’t advise you mess with me, Mr. Edgar. You might be surprised at what a woman can do.”
Edgar, who had no intention of messing with this strange, repellent woman, put up his hands and said, “I’m not going to do anything to hurt you. I owe you my life.”
“Interesting point,” said Meagan.
Night inside the giant’s tooth came in two stages. The first was when the giant himself lay down to rest, which changed the floor into a wall, and the rear wall into the floor. Everything not locked in place—including Edgar—tumbled to the back of the tooth when this happened.
Meagan laughed, not unkindly. “Sorry,” she said. “I should have warned you.”
Stage two came when Meagan decided to put out the torch, which she did only after first checking to make sure that she had her flint and steel for relighting it tucked securely in her pocket. Prior to this she had gathered some soggy fabric and piled it in the carved niche Edgar had noticed earlier. He understood now that this was her bed.
Edgar took his rest on the opposite side of a barrier she had erected between them, huddled on a collection of tattered pieces of damp cloth that she offered him—everything from a lace tablecloth to a single shirtsleeve. (“Almost managed to save that fellow,” she had muttered as she handed him that particular item.)
As he lay in the dark, wrapped in misery, Edgar thought of Melisande, wondering if he would ever find his way back to her, and what she would do if he did not. He had a horrible few moments when he imagined her giving up on him and marrying Martin Plellman, but beat the idea from his mind so fiercely that it was nearly ten minutes before it came creeping back.
After several hours he finally did drift into a fitful slumber—only to be jolted back into wakefulness by a deep rumble, something like a cross between a thunderstorm and an avalanche. It eventually tapered off to a high-pitched keening—which Edgar thought for a moment must be the wail of a lost soul—and ended with three short peeps.
“What was that?” cried Edgar in horror.
“What was what?” asked Meagan groggily. It was clear from the sound of her voice that she had slept through the appalling sound.
Before Edgar could answer, it started again.
“That!” he cried, once the last of the peeps was over.
“You woke me up for that?” snarled Meagan incredulously. “It’s just the giant, snoring. Forget it and go back to sleep.”
The snoring started again. When it was over, Edgar wanted to ask Meagan how long it had taken her to learn to sleep through the horrible racket. But she was already snoring herself, and he dared not wake her again.
He was still wide awake, though completely exhausted, when Meagan lit the torch again. Only a few moments later the giant groaned and lurched to his feet, causing everything that had fallen to the wall the night before to return to the floor.
“I’ve been thinking,” said Meagan, as she kicked the loose fabrics against the wall, “and I’ve decided that you’re going to have to build a home of your own. This place really is too small for the two of us. Odds are good I’d end up killing you.”
Though she sounded genuinely regretful, she was also firm on the point.
Edgar, who was still determined to think of this as a temporary situation, felt that digging out his own home would be a waste of time and energy. On the other hand, he was not the sort to impose—certainly not the type to force himself into the abode of a woman who did not want him there.
“Where do you suggest I make this home?” he asked, trying to keep both the snarl and the whine out of his voice.
“Well, he has nearly thirty more teeth to choose from!” snapped Meagan. “However, I’d suggest you stick with the molars. They’re roomier.” Then, as if the idea of being pleasant was still new to her, she patted back her hair and said, “It might be nice if you built nearby. More neighborly, if you know what I mean. Best thing to do is start with a tooth that already has the beginnings of a hole. I’ll help you look, if you want.”
“Thank you,” said Edgar. “I’d appreciate that.”
And so, after a breakfast so gray that Edgar decided he didn’t really want to know what it consisted of, they left Meagan’s home to search for a tooth where he could live. Meagan carried the torch, and they both had picks and knives and coils of rope strapped about them. Before they left, Meagan anchored another rope to one of the chairs inside her tooth and tied it around them both.
Edgar understood why when they stepped down onto the giant’s gums. A narrow trench between gum line and teeth provided a good foothold. Even so, the flesh was moist and slippery, and without the anchor rope it would have been all too easy to slide into the damp cavern of the giant’s throat. The giant’s tongue, pulsating beside them like a pink and fleshy whale, was a constant danger. Even worse, when they first started out they had to dodge into the gap between Meagan’s tooth and the next one while the giant poked at their hiding spot with the tip of his tongue, as if he was trying to dislodge an irritating bit of food that had become stuck there.
It was a humbling thought for Edgar to realize that “an irritating bit of food” was, in fact, precisely what he had become.
“Does he ever use toothpicks?” he asked Meagan nervously.
“Too stupid,” replied the woman. “Come on, he’s done now. Let’s go.”
The tooth directly next to Meagan’s was strong and solid, with no obvious place for Edgar to begin excavating a home. The one next to that, however—the tooth farthest back in the giant’s mouth—had a hole twice the size of Edgar’s fist. The odor of decay hung rank about it, but Meagan said that would disappear when Edgar had cut away the rot.
It had taken a while to find the hole, since they had had to crawl all over the tooth looking for it. Unlike the opening to Meagan’s home, it was on the tooth’s outer side, facing the cheek rather than the tongue. They had reached that side by crawling on their bellies through the same gap between the teeth where they had taken shelter earlier.
“Nice location,” said Meagan, when they found the opening. “Safer than mine, though not quite so convenient for snagging food. I suppose you might give yourself a door on the other side of the tooth as well, once you’ve dug through it. Need to be careful, though, not to weaken it too much.”
Before Meagan would let him start to work, she bound them both to the tooth with a combination of ropes and leather straps. When she had driven Edgar nearly mad with checking and rechecking to make sure they were secure, she nodded and said, “Dig in.”
Edgar swung the pick and knocked away a chunk of the yellowed enamel.
The outraged roar of pain that rose from deep within the giant nearly deafened him. At the same time, the giant slapped his hand against his cheek. The mushy cheek wall pressed Edgar and Meagan against the tooth. The torch went out with a sizzle.
“Meagan!” cried Edgar. “Are you all right?”
The question—and her answer—were lost in the giant’s reverberating “Owwwwwwieeee!”
Despite the horrifying darkness, the awful squishiness of the cheek pressed against him, and the fact that he could scarcely breathe, Edgar almost felt sorry for the giant. Then he reminded himself that the only reason the creature was suffering this way was because it had tried to eat him.
“Now you see why I strapped us down,” gasped Meagan, after the bellowing had died away. “I’m afraid you’ll have to work in the dark for now. I won’t be able to light the torch again out here.”
Edgar located the hole by touch, then began chipping away at it. Without light the work was excruciatingly slow, since he could not take mighty swings with the pick. Instead he began tap-tap-tapping at the tooth, and in this way painstakingly enlarged the hole. This method was clearly safer, since the giant merely moaned, rather than howling in pain, and did not again slap his hand to his cheek. Edgar and Meagan did have one bad moment, when the giant began digging at the back of his mouth with his fingertip, trying to dis
lodge whatever was bothering him. But Meagan had tied them down with slipknots, and as soon as she saw the light at the front of the giant’s mouth, she loosened the ropes so they could again take shelter in the gap between the teeth.
The giant’s blunt and dirty fingertip prodded against their hiding place but was far too wide to get at them. He did try his fingernail a couple of times. It came somewhat farther into the gap between the teeth, but by cowering back they were able to avoid it. Edgar longed to attack the probing nail with his pick, but Meagan held him back.
By the time they decided to rest, Edgar had managed to enlarge the hole to the point where he could get his head and shoulders into it. His arms ached, and he longed for light. But he reminded himself that Meagan had done the same thing all on her own, with no company and no hope of light for relief, with nothing but her own will to survive driving her on.
When they had returned to the tooth where Meagan made her home and she had lit a fresh torch, Edgar found himself looking at her with new respect.
The outer coating of the tooth was hard but brittle, and broke away fairly easily. After about four feet, the material changed to something dense and yellow, and tougher to work with the pick.
It took five days—which is to say, five of the times between when they slept—to reach this inner material. Two days before that, the hole had been big enough that Edgar could crawl completely inside. Though it was big enough for him to fit in comfortably—if you consider being curled in a tight ball comfortable—Meagan did not make him move there immediately, as he had once feared she would. This pleased him, and not merely for the obvious reasons. They had grown more easy in their companionship as the work on Edgar’s home had continued, and he had come to think of her not merely as someone sharing a disaster, but as a genuine, if somewhat irascible, friend.
Finally the time came when the excavation in the tooth was big enough for Edgar to take up his home in it. He moved his things—that is, the two or three items Meagan had given him, as well as a pitchfork (the single thing he had managed to snag on his own)—to his new abode.