Continued from this entry, by request of mnfaure. (n.b. tense shift. I don't want to do a whole long narrative in present tense)





“I won’t offer you food, because I’m sure you know it’s a bad idea to take food from strangers,” the woman said, leading the four of them through a kitchen (with a hearth, and a cooking pot! Like in stories, Kelsey thought, pleased) and out into the back.

Slim chokecherries and ancient, twisted crabapples were growing there, girdled by a protective semicircle of raspberry and blackberry canes. Beyond that, the woods.

“Listen!” said Gwen. There was a constant tinkling and clinking, a small chim-chiming and a click-clacking.

“My wind chimes. My early-warning system,” said the woman, smiling. When the children looked puzzled, she said, “If they ever go quiet, I know there’s trouble.” Which remark only puzzled them more, but the woman added merely, “I thought you might like them.”

“What are they made out of?” asked Magnus, stopping one twisting, shining piece with his hand. Some kind of cog? A gear from a ten-speed bike, that’s what it was. And this here was a railroad spike. And those, hanging upside down, with holes carefully drilled in their bottoms, were green, brown, and white glass bottles. And here were bits of terra-cotta garden pots, and what were those? Spoons and forks. And over there, flashing brilliant rainbows, were festoons of CDs, next to garlands of pencil stubs and screws of different sizes.

“Cool!” said Magnus.

Creepy, thought Ryan, eyes on feathers, fluffy feathers … hanging from taloned feet—why were they hanging there? They didn’t make noise at all. And those fluttering plastic orange ribbons. Ryan had seen ribbon like that before: it was used to mark off property boundaries. But these pieces each had small, thin white bones tied in the middle of their length.

“Look at those,” he said under his breath to Kelsey, who’d come up beside him—except no, to his horror he realized it wasn’t Kelsey, it was the owner of the wind chimes.

“Yes, they’re scary,” she said, nodding. “But they have a purpose.” She looked at him sidelong, and he swallowed. He wished the others would glance this way, would notice, but then again, what was there to notice?

“Why do you suppose you’re the only one who’s frightened?” the woman asked.

Ryan couldn’t answer. A familiar feeling of shame assailed him, and leaching up through it, anger. Never brave strong fast clever enough.

“Maybe it’s because you’re the hero of the story,” the woman said.

Ryan shot her an incredulous look.

“Who’s going to save you all from trouble, if no one knows there’s trouble about?” she asked.

“You’re the trouble,” Ryan blurted out.

“You know that, and I know that, but they don’t know that,” the woman said.

“You’re not supposed to tell me that.”

“You don’t think so? Oh, I see: you don’t want an unfair head start, is that it? You don’t need to worry; I’m not giving you one. I have my reasons for saying what I do.” She put her hands on her hips and regarded him with friendly curiosity.

“So what are you going to do now?” she asked.

Ryan cleared his throat.

“Guys,” he called. “I just remembered that my mom wanted me to put away the garbage bins before she gets home, and it’s getting kind of late. I think we should go.”