Spearfinger
Chapter 15
The blistering, afternoon light pierced like a ray through a water glass, straight, strong, and unyielding; it hurt to be in its terrible stare, and the children stumbled to the ground, blinking and unorthodox. They lay on the eastern slope of a grassy knoll outside the cave outlet, and welcomed the soft touch of fescue on their wet, sore bodies. Sudden relief following sudden horror can ofttimes dispel all other thoughts, desires, and realities; when we go through hell and make it to the other side, we forget we have duties, faraway friends, and family; we finally comprehend very little in life matters except being with those we love and enjoying the breath in our lungs. This was no different for the children, who found themselves in sudden hysterics, laughing and leaping. Before long, they were singing and rolling down the hillside; its warm grass dried their clothes, and the sunshine lifted their spirits.
After several frolicking minutes, the hilarity faded, and their somber task came back to each one-by-one, as well as the sobering notion that they were very lost in a wild and unfamiliar forest. They gazed down the slope in hopes of finding some sense of direction. The crystal river had exited the cave outlet into a creek, running east, before veering southeast and disappearing into a distant hillside. To the south, their knoll plummeted into a sharp canyon cradled between it and another steep mountain. Heading northeast, the pasture rolled on for five-hundred yards, filled with bounding squirrels and hopping rabbits, buzzing bees and jumping grasshoppers, until it met a dark, blue hollow. Several miles away, on the far side of the hollow, they saw the dim crescent mark of a river running from the north; and further northeast of it they could just perceive the hazy outline of a village. And all the while they gazed about, behind them, at the westernmost point of the knoll, where it met the mountain and tree line, a pair of eyes studied the children.
“Where do we go now?” Herbert asked, glancing at the sleeping faerie in his patch pocket.
“I don’t know,” Marian replied. She met her sister’s eyes, wincing and fumbling through her words. “Esther…nothing. Never mind.” Deep down, she felt very foolish and embarrassed with herself for listening to the Top-Hat Man, but she didn’t know how to express it without feeling unworthy of leading her brother and sister any further. She made up in her mind that as soon as they were out of the forest she would apologize.
“Look lak a town acrost there,” said Aaron, pointing across the hollow. “Maybe there abody who can hep us.”
“A town?” Esther pondered aloud.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Marian added. “But I think Aaron is right. It is probably our best bet.”
“Well, let’s get moving,” added Herbert. “I feel like someone is watching us.”
“I had the same sensation, Herbert,” said Marian.
The children began their journey again down the northeast slope, chasing the skipping rabbits and startling the fluttering butterflies, until the fine grassy pasture gave way to a stark hollow of deep, tight oaks. As they entered, the rabbits disappeared into their warren dens on the western slopes, and the sunshine clouded into gray, somber light. The forest trees had interwoven their limbs to form a strange interlocked canopy; underneath, it gave the impression of an endless, crocheted blanket or wooden spiderweb. The tight limbs corralled and blocked the sunshine completely out.
The children had become lost under an ocean of darkness, amber and green. Their sense of east and west disappeared near instantaneously, leaving them tense and argumentative. Aaron knew a bit of scout-training from his Paw-Paw to remember to aim three trees in succession and walk from spot to spot in a perfect line; but after only a few minutes, the children felt like they were in the caverns all over again. The hollow was a trap for their senses, and each bleakly felt the sting of shame for allowing such a simple thing to happen to them again. They had traded the dripping stalactites for creeping branches, and shadowy pillars for monstrous trees; only now, spiderwebs stuck to them with every step.
The trees disappeared behind menagerie of limbs, vines, and ivy; nothing was unique and any notion of turning back was lost. Dusky and damp, like wet, soggy blankets; sweat building up, mildew and muskrats. Spiderwebs in faces, clinging to soft, wet limbs; creeping and crawling, tickling down their necks; smacking and shivering, holes they caught falling; bruising and festering, cuts grown appalling. Mushrooms and moss, carefully tossed; tree limbs and chattering, a wonder of what’s pattering. Up and down through thicket and hill, crooked roots and broken untilled. Nonsense and no sense, lost hope in their souls; a coyote scared clambering, down into its hole. Ravens cawed to crows’ note; a soft and helpless, empty repose; the forest horrifically silent like a shouting mime; it clawed at the face with no reason or rhyme. Tap, tap, tap came dripping off the leaves; slosh, slosh, slosh was the mud up to knees. Creeping and crawling like a terrible game; the children without notion of why they came.
“From the frine pan to the far,” whispered Aaron.
“What?” Herbert asked.
“Jist summen my pa used to says.”
“The only thing missing is that terrible song we heard in the caves,” added Marian.
“I thought I’s the onliest one to hears it!” Aaron shouted. “You-all kep goin lak you -all dudn’t heared it. Tacking abouten nonsense louder than a mule in a tin barn.” The children giggled together; it was the sort of soft, gentle laugh that comforts the privately afraid.
Fog rolled along the ground and covered their feet; the air was dense and opaque. They tried to keep the talk between themselves care-free and off any subject of the forest; things like Mr. Oulette’s round, funny glasses, Vinnie’s squeaky voice, and the worst kind of lunch food, “turkey-slop”. It helped to snicker and remember their lives outside of the deep, enchanted forest; yet each child was growing more and more disquieted as the path darkened, the fog thickened, and the way seemed unclear. They were good and lost, but none wanted to admit it. Over their scant giggling was a soft, silky noise like singing laughter, yet menacing and haunting.
“Uwe la na tsiku. Su sa sai,” the very near voice chimed.
“No,” whispered Marian. “I thought we left it behind in the caverns.”
“What is it?” Esther mused.
“I knew something was watching us on the hill,” said Herbert.
“Herbert,” Marian whispered. “Do you still have your pocketknife?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Good. We might need it.”
The group had stopped walking, and their eyes followed Marian’s sweeping pointed arm; and one by one, they fixed on the same spot in the shadowy underbrush. Between the spindly conifers of two red cedars, an elderly man rested on a rock; his short white hair, long plaid slacks, and blue USN tattoo were as recognizable as their own faces. Mr. Mewbourn.
“Paw-Paw?” Aaron whispered. He stepped toward the man, but Marian grabbed his arm.
“Wait,” she whispered.
Mr. Mewbourn smiled at the children and waved his hand in the air, inviting them to come closer.
Marian shook her head at Aaron and asked the elderly man sternly, “Who are you?”
The old man’s smile faded into a devilish smirk; his mouth opened but the voice did not match his appearance. It was not rough and warm like Mr. Mewbourn; but soft, smooth and sweet like honey.
“Uwe la na tsiku,” the voice whispered. “Su sa sai. Liver, I eat it. Su sa sai.”
The children felt lightheaded, like waking from a long dream, and before they really comprehended what was said, the man had slunk behind the cedars and disappeared into the underbrush; the fog rolled over his escape and a raven cawed in the canopy above.
“Great,” Marian whispered, and felt Herbert shaking next to her.
“Arybody, RUN!” shouted Aaron.
The children huddled together and ran in a broken line up a slope through the dense wood. Cedar limbs slapped across their faces and scratched their cheeks until the sunlight broke through on the top of a ridge and they could see clearly the world around them.
“There!” Marian exclaimed and the four children climbed down to the opposite end of a stone embankment, where a rocky shelf hid them from three sides, above, left and right. It was as good of a hiding place as they could have hoped for. Below, the ground melted away into a steep cliff covered in fallen leaves and slick moss. The children gathered tight together and listened intently, holding their breath and waiting to see if the strange figure had followed them.
Soon, they heard the rustle of leaves and a stuttered breathing from beside them on the path they had raced up. Whatever it was no longer sounded like the sweet, honey voice; now it was haggard, bitter, and sharp like an old woman. They knew it must be just beyond the cliff-face. Again, Marian felt the shame of having taken her siblings this way and wished to God that Balaam was still with them.
A noise like rumbling rocks shuffled in the bushes above, then a branch shuddered somewhere far away, and they perceived the thing must have kept following the path away from them.
“Huddle close, everyone,” Marian directed, just above a whisper.
Herbert clutched his knife in hand. Aaron clenched his fists.
“We need to wait here for as long as we can before going back out there. And hopefully, we can make it to the other side of the wood soon.”
“Which way do we go?” Esther pleaded. “Do you think we can go back to the prairie?”
“Whar bouten that village?” Aaron asked.
“I don’t know,” replied Marian, at a loss for words.
From beneath the rocky shelf under them, a long, dainty spear appeared behind Esther; it moved along the ground as smooth and effortless as a serpent until it was at her ankle. In the next moment, Esther’s face slammed into the rock floor and her body was dragged off the embankment, down the steep cliff.
“Esther!” The children screamed, and without second-guessing it, all leapt off the rock embankment and slid down the cliff after her flailing body.
The buzzing in Esther’s ears made the world turn yellow, white, and cloudy. It felt like she was floating in watery pain, until her senses returned and she shrieked in agony over her bleeding head and sore leg. A stiff hand was clasped around her ankle and yanking her body down the slope until she reached the bottom and was pulled into a bush.
Aaron was leaping ahead of the others and tumbling down the forest slope. He wrestled through a thicket of rhododendron, tangled up and out of breath, and saw Esther lying helpless under her attacker. He dove forward to tackle the thing as Marian and Herbert tumbled the rest of the way and emerged beside their sister.
Now the children saw the shapeshifter for what it really was; a hag, or wood-witch, with wispy, gray hair dangly across her sunken eyes; a short, emaciated figure, and one twelve-inch spear on her right hand where the forefinger should have been. Esther’s ankle was in the hag’s right clenched fist.
Aaron charged the hag like a linebacker, grabbing hold of it with both arms and hitting it in a fitful rage. The creature shoved Aaron with its left hand, caught him off-balance, and sent him flailing into the forest.
Esther was screaming, fighting, biting, and punching, but the stone-hand would not release her and the long spear lunged forward at her face. Marian took Esther’s hands and pulled to no avail, while Herbert jabbed at the witch with his short pocket knife; first, he attempted cutting the hag’s arm and freeing his sister, but the knife glanced off of it like a sharpening stone. He was so confounded by the hard skin, and overcome by the violent mission to cut the thing off of his sister that he felt no remorse or sense of common-decency; he aimed for what he thought would be the softest parts—the underbelly, the armpits, the neck—but like the wrist, the knife merely pinged off the skin.
Aaron was back, jumping on top of the witch and flopping around as it twisted and turned underneath him. He punched at her head, bruising and bloodying his hands as he went. In the scuffle, he was never sure if he was helping in any sort of positive way, and after several kicks, punches, and cuffs, he had lost so much awareness that he may have been hitting Herbert or Esther instead of the wood-witch. He tried pulling at the thing’s gray, thin hair, to distract it from holding on to Esther’s ankle but nothing could relinquish the monster’s grip or determination. All the while the spear lunged about, with Esther’s leg flopping this way and that in its grasp, nearly missing Aaron and Herbert’s faces and chests.
Finally, the hag’s hand twisted open, but only to cut Esther. The spear had dug in to Esther’s flesh, just above the ankle and under the calf; it ripped and sliced the tendon to shreds.
Herbert, still clutching hold of the fist and trying to pull the rest of it free, felt a soft, fleshy part of the creature’s palm and jabbed his knife into the deformed hand. Crimson blood spurt and spat out of the back of the knife, and the spear slid out of Esther’s ankle.
The hag screamed and cursed like a banshee. “Su sa sai!”
The forest erupted—birds, foxes, groundhogs, squirrels, skunks, and deer fled in every direction leaving behind an avalanche of sound.
Aaron kicked the hag’s chest in. Surprisingly, it flew back, fell to one knee, and nursed its bloody hand for a moment, screaming and writhing in pain like a deformed fish on land.
Guessing the creature was nearing the end of its resolve, Aaron stepped forward and shouted, hoping to scare it away. But the creature’s wherewithal was not spent. It leapt up and struck him in the chest with its stony fist, and Aaron tossed through the wood, over Herbert and Marian’s heads, into a coiled rhododendron.
Marian and Herbert helped their sister to her feet. Esther screamed in agony when her foot touched the ground. Putting their arms under her shoulders, the brother and sister counted her weight, trying to help her flee. But the ugly, menacing creature stood in their way, staring from its deep set, invisible eyes between its thin, gray hair. The thing’s chest rose and fell under frantic breathing.
Herbert leaned Esther onto Marian and stepped forward into the foggy, scuffled path between the hag and his sisters. His pocket knife shook fitfully in his gripped fist, dropping blood off itself like a centrifuge.
“I won’t let you hurt them,” said Herbert, quaking.
Aaron flailed about in the rhododendron, trying to stand, before tripping and falling back into its web and tying himself up even tighter. “I’m ‘onna fry ya lak a squ’rrel, you nast haint!” He cried.
Herbert made a quick glance to see his sisters retreating. Good, they were still trying to get away. Now it was up to him to keep this thing away from them for as long as possible. He knew he wouldn’t be able to win. But victory itself would be saving his sisters.
He faced the creature. It hunched low to the ground, rocked itself back and forth, and sang, as if a lullaby, mocking him as it stepped forward with its long spearfinger held out. Herbert clenched his jaw, barred his teeth, furrowed his brow, and prepared himself as all men do, young or old, when they face what must be death or victory for the safety of those whom they love. He took a long breath, set his foot behind himself and charged with the knife.
An earth-shattering roar thundered from the dense forest, on the far side of the hag. “Hee-Haw!”
Instantly, the hag cut her song short; with a very obvious tinge of fear and surprise. It spun round in confusion; but it was too late. A wild, white and brown Donkey with blue-grey stripes erupted from the darkness and rammed its thick head into the side of the hag, throwing her to the ground.
The witch slid across the leafy, forest floor into a low, jutting branch that impaled its right palm, just where Herbert had stabbed it before. An ear-splitting screech echoed from it again, and blood gushed from its hand. The Donkey charged, whirled on its front legs, and pounded its rear hooves into the hag’s face. Blood spat out of the empty eyes and the hag dropped to the ground dead.
All four children cheered, “Balaam!” “You came back!” “Ye’n saved us!” “Our hero!” In exhaustion and sudden panicked relief, they fell to the ground and stared at their savior.
“Faithful ol’ Donkey,” Aaron cried, tripping on his face again as he pulled himself from the rhododendron. “Couldn’t’ve done withoutchya!”
Balaam trotted to the children, imitating boredom, but indeed, very happy to see the children. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to look after you bunch of delinquents again.”
Herbert closed his knife, thankful he didn’t have to use it again, and ran to Esther’s aid. She winced in pain and reached for a tree branch to take the weight off of her injury. Blood had gushed down her ankle and soaked her sock and shoe; flies and gnats were already gathering at the blood and chewing on the flayed skin.
Staring at the hideous hag remains in the weeds, she gasped, “What is that thing?”
“Boy, that there weaked haint made me loose as a goose!” shouted Aaron.
“Her name is Utlunta,” answered Balaam. “A lot of animals in the forest call her Spearfinger. And you, Mr. Herbert, are very lucky to have stabbed her in the palm, because the legend says that is the only way to kill her. All I did was finish her off for you.”
“Iffen she can’t die ‘cept thattaway, how y’all knowed itta kill ‘er?” Aaron asked, staring confused and disgusted. “That mean summen kill this here thang afore?”
“I don’t know,” answered Balaam. “Come children. Let’s look at the little Esther and get out of the Merry-Hollow as soon as we can; it isn’t safe.”
“Shoot!” Aaron exclaimed “Quicker’n you can scat a cat!”
Aaron tied a tourniquet, made from his jacket sleeve and doused with a water-bottle, around Esther’s ankle. Balaam muttered that he did not like the look of it and seemed to be very concerned by the Spearfinger cutting into her veins. But then, after seeing the children’s expressions, changed his manner, shook his big droopy face, and smiled at them, telling Esther everything would be alright. “But you won’t be able to journey much with a foot like that,” added he. “Looks like you’ll need me even more now than ever.”
“I’m so sorry, Balaam,” apologized Marian.
“We-all is,” Aaron agreed.
“We should have listened and—” Marian paused. She still felt the same feeling as before; a desire to confess and apologize, but outweighed by what the others might think of her.
“It’s okay,” Balaam reassured them. “I’m back.”
The children wrapped their arms around him (except Esther, who was sitting on the ground again). They never felt so glad to have someone back in their lives.
Marian burst into tears on his shoulder. Hearing Balaam so sweetly forgive them after they had been so terrible to him wiped away all the fear of what others thought of her.
“It’s not ‘okay’ though,” said she. “I’m sorry, everyone. I shouldn’t have led us this way. I shouldn’t have taken us into the caverns, either. I was wrong to listen to the Top-Hat Man. And I have done terrible.”
The others held her in their arms.
Esther reached her hand out to touch her leg. “We forgive you,” she said, wincing.
“And now you are hurt.” Marian frowned. “I wish—Oh, what was I thinking!”
“You may have all been hurt going the other way, too,” said Balaam. “No use wishing for something that never was.”
“Balaam,” said Marian, with tears in her eyes. “You are an amazing friend.”
Balaam blushed and smirked.
“I won’t make that mistake again.”
“I think I get it, though,” Esther replied, while pulling a stick out of her left pig-tail. “And I wonder if it’s all because of the Top-Hat Man. Inside I felt yucky, too. Like—I started doubting you. And getting angry. I couldn’t get out of my head what Mr. Dauer said to me. I’m sorry, Marian.”
Aaron stooped low and lifted Esther up; she cried in pain when the ankle twisted on itself. He and Marian helped her up to Balaam’s back. She lay down and nearly fainted, exhausted from the pain, and hugged the Donkey’s fluffy neck.
“I reckon it broked,” Aaron whispered to Marian. “What ye’ns wanna do?”
“What can we do?” Marian muttered.
“Goin back-back?”
Marian thought for a long time about the question. On the one hand, going back made a lot of sense; but on the other, she doubted what kind of home she would be returning to.
“How can we after all we’ve been through?” Marian asked. “I want Esther safe. But we need my dad better if he is going to help us at all. And that means getting to whatever end of this there is.”
“Well, isn’t this great!” Balaam exclaimed snidely, looking back at Esther on his back. “Now I’ve got to traipse through haunted Merry-Hollow and carry a lame duck on my back, back to the Fool’s Pass.”
Esther smiled sheepishly and whispered in his ear, “I think you are perfect.”
“Whar these here places y’en keep tackin’ bout?” Aaron asked. “Merr’ Hollow, Fool Pass. We-all thoughts we sees a town all the farther. That’s whar we-all headed.”
“Eh? Oh, that’s Newton. You wouldn’t want to go there. Don’t you know any of the whereabouts this forest contains? No, alright then. Merry-Hollow runs west from the Pactolus, all the way to Dark Canyon. That’s where the Spearfinger likes to traverse. She had been following us since we passed over the Canyon in the rain, when the mudslide almost took Mr. Herbert out. It’s why I wanted to keep us moving. I knew where we were when at the crossroads, but I hesitated at the caverns, because I thought she may be hiding in Fool’s Pass for us.”
“That’s the way we should have went, then,” Marian surmised.
“Why din’t ye’n tell us bout them ashy snake in the cave, er ain’t tell us not to listen to the Top-Hat Man?” Aaron asked irritably.
“What use is it arguing with someone whose already made up their mind?” Balaam answered matter-of-factly. “I was hoping I would find you when you came out of the cave, but I got lost on the downs. I’m not used to looking for Uktena’s Mouth. That’s where the river drops out of the cave; I was just coming over the down when you all raced off into Merry-Hollow. It’s like you were searching for trouble.”
Aaron sneered. “Whale, I on’t put it apast ya. What-all’s next?” he asked.
“We need to head back south, near Fool’s Pass and then east from there toward the Pactolus. The sooner we get out of Merry-Hollow, the better. Spearfinger wasn’t the only thing evil in here.”
The children looked back at the hag’s corpse and shuddered one last time, realizing they had very nearly escaped death twice, and only from the sudden appearance of a rescuing friend. They weren’t doing very well on their own, and made a collective decision to listen to and fully trust Balaam henceforth.
“Should we bury it?” Marian asked, looking at Spearfinger.
“Uh—no. I don’t think that would be good,” answered Balaam awkwardly. He trotted to the corpse and jammed his hoof into its right hand breaking the spear from the digit. “I think we best just leave it here.”
“Whale,” Aaron sighed. “Ain’t no better time’n never to get goin nowhere—a-right, Balaam?”
Balaam grinned. “That’s the miserable kind of junk I’ve been trying to teach you children all along. It’s about time you listened.”
Marian sighed and shook her head at the sight of Esther’s leg again. She tightened her backpack straps, and stepped behind Balaam as he trotted along an invisible path out of the wood. The boys followed closely behind her, while the Donkey turned south in to the oak trees and creeping ivy. Esther held on to his strong neck hair as he wound through the brush. Soon the cool, smoky fog lifted away, and they saw the sunshine peak through the end of the wood again.
Keith G. Alderman 