Ruther
snorted at the comment. James looked skeptical. Henry glanced at Isabelle to
see her reaction, but she seemed unaffected. He, James, and Ruther had
intentionally kept quiet about any stories about the pass because they didn’t
believe them to be true.
“Don’t
buy into the rumors, huh?” Wilson asked. “That’s because you’re northerners.
Southerners think differently.”
“It’s
not like that,” Ruther said. “It’s that none of us are superstitious.”
“Superstitious?”
Maggie repeated. “What do you mean? What’s wrong with traveling through the
pass?”
Henry
and Ruther both quickly answered, “Nothing,” but Maggie waited for Wilson to
give more information.
Wilson
noted her interest and looked pleased at the chance to tell his tale to a fresh
pair of ears. “It’s like I said, Miss Maggie, they’re rumors, really, but when
you hear similar threads of things for years and years . . . . ”
“There’s
no proof,” Ruther said. “Even I know the difference between fiction and truth.”
“I
know much more about truth than you do,” Wilson said with a directness that
surprised Henry. “Contrary to what these fine men say, Miss Maggie, there’s
plenty of facts to support my claims.” He ignored the several disbelieving
expressions and pressed on. “The stories of the Iron Forest and the pass that
cuts through it go back some—oh I don’t know, as long as I’ve been ‘round.
That’s about fifty years, so certainly longer than that. People claim they’ve
seen spirits, heard voices, things of that nature.”
“Seen
spirits?” James repeated. “What do spirits look like? I’ve been told all my
life that spirits are invisible.”
“In
church, no doubt,” Wilson responded. “We have a saying that goes, ‘The greatest
skeptics become the strongest believers.’ It’s much more pleasant to teach
about the angels and cherubs but skip over the demons and ghosts. It don’t make
sense that you’d have one without the other.”
James
chuckled cynically at Wilson. “I have a saying that goes, ‘I’ll believe in
ghosts when I see a ghost.’”
“So
evil spirits walk the Iron Forest?” Isabelle asked. “How do you know they’re
wicked? Maybe they’re misunderstood?”
Henry
couldn’t help but laugh. Isabelle squeezed his hand and gave him a wink.
“Good
spirits don’t kill,” Wilson said this seriously enough that Henry stopped
laughing.
“There
have been deaths?” Maggie asked.
Brandol
sat up straighter in his seat and fixed his eyes on Wilson.
“Why
haven’t I heard about them?” was Ruther’s question.
“Like
I told you already,” Wilson said, “you’re northerners. There’ve been deaths,
yes. Never bodies. Never blood.”
“How
convenient,” James muttered to Ruther.
“The
first person I met who said he’d seen the spirits was old Barney Dentin,”
Wilson continued. “He was a stick-thin man who’d done lots of trading in
Pappalon—lived in a tiny village right on the edge of the Iron Forest for most
of those years. He came up here to Washborough when his farm failed. I was a
lad then and worked some evenings at a local inn—the one where Barney Dentin
spent much of his time. The owner back then, he must’ve given old Dentin a meal
just for coming inside and sitting down. Half of the people who drank at the
inn only wanted to hear Dentin’s tall tales.
“I
remember on my first day of work, there sat Dentin, surrounded by half a dozen
men poking him with questions. I was too busy to listen to what they was
saying. Just trying to do my chores right. After some weeks, I’d got to know
him a little better. He knew my name and what-not, but that was the extent of
it. Wasn’t until I was clearing his plate one day in the middle of a
conversation that I caught a bit of what he was telling people. I heard words
like ‘floating’ and ‘evil.’ I stayed around for a few seconds to listen, but my
boss swatted my head with a broom and then lashed me with words for standing
‘round.
“I
would’ve come to the inn on one of my days off, but my father wouldn’t hear
nothing about it. I told him I weren’t going to drink, I wanted to listen to
old Barney Dentin, but my old man was opposed to that, too. My old man, he
thought Barney Dentin was a loon getting free meals for being an
entertainer—that he’d made a deal with the owner to keep each other in
business.
“But
I was a lad, and my father’s words didn’t make no sense. All them little bits
of things I’d heard old Dentin say kept me up at night trying to put them together.
What was that old loon telling people that they all found so interesting? One
day, I’d had enough guessing. I went out the window after telling my folks I
was turning in early. I acted sick all day so they’d believe I weren’t feeling
well. We lived closer to town those days, so it wasn’t too far a walk for me. I
went in the inn the same as I always did, only this time I didn’t let my boss
know I was in for work. No, I went straight for Barney Dentin. I don’t know if
I’d found him on a good day or if the inn was less busy on my days off, but his
eyes brightened to small suns when he saw me.
“‘Wilson,
why am I not surprised to see you?’
“His
voice reminded me of the wooden stairs in our old house: creaky and thin. ‘You
want to hear my stories, then?’ His bone-thin hand pointed to the chair across
from him. I sat, and he leaned in toward me. The remains of a nice dinner
rested in front of the old timer, but even more of it was stuck in his teeth.
His breath smelled strong of ale.
“‘The
Iron Pass—no, the whole Iron Forest—is haunted, Wilson,’ he said, and I knew
right then he knew it. ‘For thirty years of my life, I crossed the pass at
least twice a year. So sixty times, at least. Sixty, and over a dozen of those
times I saw things. What kind of things, you might ask. The answer is . . . I
still don’t know.’ His eyes misted over when he said this, and I could tell he
was seeing them all over again. ‘Mostly white things, Wilson. Sometimes on the
ground, sometimes on the air, floating in the trees. It weren’t until I’d
crossed that pass maybe twenty times that I first noticed them. I had no reason
to be worried.’ He grinned cheerily at me, but all I saw was the meat caught
between his bad teeth.
“‘First
time I saw a glimpse of the white, I passed it off as weariness, and it weren’t
until another year or two that I saw it again. A sliver of white, as pure and
evil as anything I’ve ever seen. I shouted out to it, but it was gone in a
blink. Now any man who sees something unusual once is likely to pass it off,
twice he thinks he’s seeing things, thrice and he knows he’s not mad, unless he
is. But I knew I weren’t a fool, and when I saw it that third time, I started
asking questions.’
“Then
old Barney Dentin told me about people he’d met on both sides of the pass. Lots
of people who either saw or knew other people who’d experienced similar things.
He learned the story of the Massacre of the Pass that went back clear to two
hundred years ago now. He told me about all of it.”
“What
massacre?” James asked.
Wilson
looked genuinely surprised at James question. “You’re a military man, and you
ain’t heard it? It goes way back to when Avalon was one country—before Pappalon
and Greenhaven and all them other countries broke apart from it. Blithmore and
Avalon had an argument over the sea trading. I can’t remember the particulars
now, but the king of Avalon got mad enough to send an army to iron out things
the old fashioned way. He sent five hundred by boat and five hundred on foot.
Those on foot were to go through the pass and head north, drawing the armies of
Blithmore away. Supposedly they’d received a promise of alliance from Neverak,
but that’s never been verified. The way Barney told it, the five hundred men
arrived by boat. Only problem was, as soon as they landed, Blithmore struck
hard with a full army. The other army never made it through the forest, and no
one ever saw any member of the army again. Blithmore and Avalon have never had
a war since.”
“Weren’t
search parties sent after the army?” James asked.
“Of
course, but they never found nothing worth reporting. No signs that the army
had even been on the trail.”
Maggie
was the only one out of the group who seemed convinced by Wilson’s story.
Brandol might have been, too, but Henry couldn’t tell because his journeyman
almost always looked scared or nervous these days. Isabelle usually dismissed
anything supernatural, but now she appeared to be somewhere in between James
and Ruther’s utter rejection and Maggie’s conviction. Henry also noticed that
the more Wilson spoke, the more he addressed himself to Maggie and Brandol
since they were the ones who seemed to believe him.
“How
convenient that no traces of the army were found,” Ruther remarked.
Wilson
smiled at Ruther’s reaction. “Say what you will, but it’s all true. Barney told
me how he’d checked with Pappalonian historians about the story. Everything was
accurate. When you take into account how many people have seen things or heard
things . . . and that army ain’t the only death. There’ve been others. Small
parties. A lone traveler here or there.”
Wilson
paused as if to gauge his audience’s reaction. “Well, I can see I ain’t going
to change your minds on this, and yet, it’s worth thinking about.”
“We
appreciate you trying to warn us,” Henry said in a friendly voice.
“I’m
off to bed now,” Wilson said. “Do you still plan to stay through tomorrow and
leave the day after?”
“Yes,”
Henry answered. “We’re very grateful for your hospitality.”
Wilson
gave a waving gesture, telling Henry to think nothing of it. He glanced
pointedly at Ruther, reminding Henry to keep watch, and then retired. After
several minutes of scuttling around the room, the six friends arranged their
make-shift beds. The fire kept the room heated and filled with the rich scent
of burning wood. Henry was quite aware of this feeling of contentment as he
listened to his friends fall asleep one by one. Unlike them, sleep again eluded
him. His mind raked over the stories Wilson had told. While it was true they
hadn’t deterred him from taking the Iron Pass, he could not dismiss them as
easily as James or Ruther.
He
tried to imagine a logical explanation for five hundred men disappearing at
once, leaving no trace of their existence. If all the information Wilson had
given them was truthful, where could they have gone? These questions spawned
several others. Could spirits even touch people? Why would they want to protect
the Iron Forest—or Blithmore for that matter? Divining answers to these
questions was like trying to pound a peg into a board using his forehead. He
decided to speak to Isabelle about it when they had a chance.
When
sleep finally seemed possible, sounds came from across the room where Brandol
and Ruther lay. The soft noises continued for several seconds, then turned into
footsteps. The source of the sounds stopped at the front door. It was too dark
for Henry to see anything properly. A small blast of cold air hit his face,
chilling him. Then the door closed once more. Henry paused before getting up,
not wanting to alarm the person who’d left.
“Henry?”
Maggie asked in a faint voice as he passed her.
“Go
back to sleep. You’re having a dream.”
“Oh,
right, never mind.”
Henry
peered out the door. The gray clouds hanging over them two days ago had given
way to a brilliant starry night. A full moon cast its white-blue light on the
blanket of snow. When he saw no one, he slipped through the door and all but
closed it behind him. A few minutes passed and the stable door opened. A horse
exited led by a cloaked figure. Holding the reins with one hand, the figure
used the other hand to close the stable door firmly, then he mounted the horse
and left.
Quaking
violently from the cold, Henry went back inside. He didn’t need to sneak around
the room to find out which friend had left. Nor did he need to follow the
figure to find out what he was doing at this hour on such a cold night. The
moonlight was enough, and the figure’s outline was unmistakable.
Henry
ran his fingers through his hair as he went back to his small bed of blankets.
The cold followed him despite the closed door. He pulled the blankets back over
himself, grateful for their warmth, grateful for the pillow’s depth, grateful
he was too tired for emotions.
The
next morning, Henry went back to the woodshop with Wilson working on both the
wagon and other small projects. Wilson’s sons and most of Henry’s company
helped as well. Ruther’s attitude was more jovial than it had been in days. He
sang, teased, and played word games all morning. They all worked tirelessly,
stopping only to eat. By evening, the carriage looked almost as good as the day
Henry had built it.
James
went hunting by himself and brought home several rabbits for dinner. Brandol,
on the other hand, stayed in bed much of the day, complaining he wasn’t feeling
well. Becca, Maggie, and Isabelle prepared the rabbits for dinner. During the
meal, the conversation stayed on the group’s exodus that would take place early
the next morning. Wilson revealed several impressive maps he’d worked on over
the years and reviewed them with Henry’s company. He showed them the best
routes to take in between Washborough and Bookerton, and then between Bookerton
and the pass. These paths, though further to the east than those they planned
to travel, would keep them from bumping into most anyone, especially soldiers.
Ruther pointed out that it didn’t matter since they had the writ of passage,
but Wilson ignored his comments, as he had done most of the day.