The Miracle Thief (12 page)

Surely I would meet up with the others at the hospice. Though the village looked quite distant, it could not be far now. The sun had nearly disappeared behind the mountains, and I had been walking for quite some time.

Loosing the knot on my cloth, I felt inside it for my cross of straw. Leaving the road, I stumbled down the hill. Crosses sprouted from the earth like a grove of trees of various sizes, but all of them were larger, all of them more substantial than mine. It seemed a paltry offering among so many others, but Rosamund had said I must leave it here.

The wind gusted again, battering my mantle about my legs and my hair about my face. I disentangled myself and then walked forward and bent in front of a stand of crosses. I would have liked to have planted mine in the earth, along with the others, but the ground was hard, and my cross was hardly larger than my hand. After kissing it, I set it down between two others.

There. The first step in my pilgrimage had been accomplished.

But as I turned to regain the road, the wind gusted once more, cupping my pitiful offering in its hands and then setting it loose to tumble end-over-end down the hill.

I ran after it, hoping to retrieve it, but it had already disappeared.

There were crosses without numbers surrounding me, but none of them were mine. How could I ever hope for healing now?

I battled my way back up the hill. It was with a heavy heart and sinking hopes that I placed my feet back on the road. As I started down off the heights, I heard a noise rise from the road behind me. As I turned, I was startled to see a creature cross the road.

My heart clattered against my chest before I realized it must be a dog. A big one, for certain, but a dog just the same. I had seen many of them from my window, and all they seemed interested in was rousting the pigs from their forage. As I continued on, however, another creature darted across the road in front of me.

I walked more quickly, knowing I must reach the valley before night fell. As I threw a glance behind me, I saw the dog again. And now he was trotting down the road in my direction.

Unease rippled through my stomach. Though I had seen dogs, it had always been from a distance; I had no wish to meet one. Though there was no reason I ought to have been worried, I broke into a run.

And then the other one appeared again in front of me. Caught betwixt the two of them, I stopped. There was no reason to be frightened. I was not some discarded rag or rotten piece of food for them to fight over. They must simply have wandered from the village. Perhaps they wanted me only to lead them back home. “Nice dog.”

The one in front of me bared its teeth.

Perhaps it was not quite so nice as I had hoped.

I turned around, hoping the other had gone, but he lifted his head and gave a bloodcurdling howl. It was then I noted something I ought to have seen before. Their heads were rather larger than any dog I'd ever seen, and their muzzles and legs much longer.

What if these were not dogs? What if they were—what if they were
wolves
?

I ran.

But not three paces down the road, I stepped into a hole and fell sprawling, as my knotted cloth fell from my hand. I could not breathe, but I dared not stay prostrate. As I pushed up, I heard the creatures' footfalls cease. Rolling to my knees, I lifted my head with great dread.

The two had joined forces, and they were sitting on their haunches, staring at me.

Facing them, I pushed up from the ground with my good hand. My pack was lying on the road just beyond my reach. Bending, I stretched my hand toward it.

One of the creatures curled up its lip with a snarl.

Leaving the cloth, I straightened to standing and took one slow step away from them. And then another. And then I turned and ran.

Stumbling and sliding on the loose rocks, I went a good ten paces down the road, but when I chanced a glance back over my shoulder, they were still following. Veering from the road, I entered the wood. I had hoped to gain speed in my flight, but there I was sorely mistaken. Fallen branches and a tangle of brush blocked my way. Though I leaped over those I could, more confronted me with every step. And then, once I had finally managed to free myself from those entanglements, the earth sloped sharply away beneath me, and I found myself on the verge of a cliff.

Behind me, the wolves were howling. Off to my left somewhere, a third seemed to answer in return. My only path to safety lay beneath me. If I was very careful, I just might be able to find a way to the bottom.

I grasped the trunk of a slender tree beside me and then stepped out, hoping to pick my way down the cliff. That first step sunk into a thick litter of leaves, and then my foot slid a bit of a ways, leaving my arm stretched out behind me.

I looped my bad hand around another tree trunk and disengaged the first as I took another step downward. My movement started a cascade of leaves and stones. I clung to the tree until it stopped.

Reaching out with my good hand, I stretched forward, hoping to reach another tree's trunk, but it was too far away. I sat down and then, releasing my hold, I let myself slide down the cliff, just a bit, until another tree came to hand.

The howling began again, echoing in the twilight about me.

Standing, I reached farther, for a different tree, but another cascade began, and this time, it carried me along with it. I could not keep my feet beneath me. Tumbling shoulder over shoulder, I careened down the cliff. Only the presence of a large boulder toward the bottom arrested my fall. And that, none too gently.

I lay there for some time, too dazed to move, fearing the wolves would assail me at any moment, but they did not come.

Out in the wood before me I thought I heard the sound of water, though it might have come from the space between my ears. From my prone position, I glanced up to where I had begun my descent. Four wolves stood there, staring at me. I wondered why they had not followed. With my body bruised and my wits scattered, they would have gotten the better of me. And yet…there they stayed.

Night had crept into the wood now, and the wind had stiffened. With it came a fishy, fetid odor. My nose tingled with the stench. I coughed and then winced as the effort set my head to aching.

Sitting, I ran my hands over my tunic, brushing dirt and leaves from the fabric. I wriggled my toes and stretched out my legs. Straightened my arms. They were stiff, but despite the fall, they did not give me any pain. And, best of all, in my wild tumble I had left those wolves behind.

But as I gained my feet, something snapped and crackled through the wood. Something big by the sound of it. A horse, perhaps! “Hallo! Is anyone there?”

The noise stopped.

“Hallo?”

The crackling and crunching started once more.

“Hallo?”

The noise stopped, and an unearthly growl, low and menacing, came by way of answer. It was different than the wolves' howl, longer and deeper, and it made the hairs at the nape of my neck stand on edge.

I stood there, still as a stone, as the snapping and crackling grew closer. They were accompanied by a rhythmic snuffling and the rustle of fallen leaves. By the moon's pale light, I could make out a large, lurching figure through the trees.

Up behind me, the wolves began to howl in chorus.

The thing before me seemed to stand and then let out a lengthy growl.

I sank to my knees in the dirt where I had landed and cowered there behind the boulder. Eyes closed, I recited a noiseless succession of prayers.

The snuffling paused as it passed the boulder.

I squeezed my eyes tighter still as I ceased my supplications. And then…the beast passed on.

By that time, night had come in earnest. I was far from the road; I was stranded at the bottom of a cliff with an unknown beast somewhere in the wood around me and a pack of wolves on the cliff above me. And worst of all my woes, the loss of my cross still pressed upon me. I saw now I should have taken it as a sign.

I had lost the favor of Providence.

The wind shifted directions and came to assault me more directly. Did I dare to leave my boulder in search of some other warmer, safer place? But how could I move without alerting the beasts? And in the dark of night I might well stumble over another cliff or become mired without any warning in another slew of bushes and branches.

Pulling my knees up to my chest, I wrapped my tunic and then my mantle around me as best as I could. After increasing fits of shivering seized me, I used my hands, both the good and the bad, to pull leaves close and mound dirt up around me. And there I kept watch as birds hooted and creatures howled throughout the long of the night.

***

Morning's pale light did not do me any favors. As I stared up the cliff from which I had tumbled, it served only to remind me why my body ached. And it put to rest any lingering hope I had of ever going back the way I had come.

I knew I must find the road, but which way was I to go in order to discover it?

Although I had been descending to the valley on the road, the countryside was rife with hills, and the road always seemed somehow to mount up before it went down again, and turn right before it curved to the left once more. And besides, my escape from it had been headlong. In any case, I could not climb back up the cliff I had tumbled down, but I also knew I should not advance past the boulder that had stopped my fall. Should I do so, I would be heading away from the road, not toward it. But in my flight from the road, in wading through snags of brush and tangles of fallen limbs, how was I to know if I had turned back upon my own path? Or if I had even advanced any farther down the road than I had been when I had left it?

Had I lost myself in this dark, shadowed, wild place, never to have the chance to pray to Saint Catherine at the abbey?

A sob clogged my throat, swelling it with disappointment and regret.

How could I find a way out of this place I had fallen into?

There was a village at the bottom of the valley. I had seen it. And in that village there must be a hospice. I had already walked a far piece, so the village could not be too distant. If I could only reach it, then I could have my wounds tended, and I could eat, and then I could take to the road once more.

I must go no farther into the wood than the boulder; I could go no higher in the wood than I was right now. That meant starting off in the direction from which that hulking creature had come the night before. Though he had not come back during the long, dark night, who knew that he might not decide to do that very thing now? Though I suffered a moment of indecision, there was nothing to be gained by delay but the misery of another long, cold night. And so, I started off.

***

At first I turned every few steps to keep the boulder in sight, to make certain I had not strayed beyond it. My suspicions had been well-founded: there was a stream that wound through the wood. I did not mind the sound of water, and so I followed it; its gurgle seemed to lighten my thoughts and lift my hopes, but then it suddenly turned. If I followed it, the boulder would soon pass from view. And if I could not find my way back to it, how would I ever be able to return from whence I had come?

I thought on the problem for some moments before realizing I had been holding on to false hope. What purpose had the boulder served but to mark the place at which I had known myself to be lost? And why should I be so set on returning there? It could do nothing for me but keep me waylaid. In order to be found, I had to be willing to leave it behind.

But which way should I go?

If I followed the stream, I might be wandering farther into the wood instead of coming out of it.

Knowing nothing of my dilemma, the water trickled past, carrying leaves on its current as it ran past my feet, but
that
was something. The water had to be going somewhere, and had a stream ever been known to course
up
a hill?

I
had never seen it happen.

But then…I had never seen much of anything.

Reason told me I should follow the water. Would it not always find the lowest path down the mountain? I closed my eyes, remembering home. The way potage dripped from the ladle, and how milk had streamed from the mouth of the pitcher, a mouth that had channeled the milk much the same as this stream's bed had channeled the water.

I would follow the stream.

And no matter where it led, at least I was certain I would find myself farther down the mountain. The water sought what the road and I both did: it sought the valley.

***

Following a mountain's stream was easier said than done. The wood was a chill and somber place, both dim and drear. I trod from shadow to shadow as I followed every crook and bend of the stream. As I went along, it seemed to broaden, and then at times the water seemed to sprout rocks. It would dash itself around and over them, churning beneath them as if trying to dig them up and push them along. At other times, so zealously did the stream devour the rocky earth that its gently sloping bank became a treacherous cliff. At that point, I had to follow the water unseen, from the heights, being careful to keep the sound of the stream in my ear.

I was walking along, picking my way over rocks and through the brush, when I realized I could no longer hear the water. Looking down into the gulley, I realized I could not see it either.

The stream had disappeared.

***

I crashed back through the brush as I tried to hue to the track I had just made, listening for the burble of water.

At last I heard it once more.

I coaxed myself toward the great cliff, and then I got on my belly and stretched myself out over the edge, straining to see the stream my ears told me must be there.

Looking back to my left, I could see silvery strands of it slip by. But just in front of me…there was nothing. I crept along the edge of the cliff, back the way I had come until I could see the stream more clearly. Here, I proceeded with great care. The earth had fallen away from the edge in what must have been a great slide.

I could see where the earth had cascaded down to meet the stream, leaving a gaping hole into which the waters poured as they vanished into the bowels of the earth with a great roar and a frothing mist.

The stream was gone.

All my work, all my efforts had been for naught. I had placed my faith in an illusion, and now I had lost my way completely. I would have done better, perhaps, to try to fight off the wolves and cling to the road. At least if I had perished, it would have been along the way. And perhaps if I had been able to beat them back for just a little while, help might have come. But here, in this dark and dire wood, I had only myself.

I could not go back. I had come too far for that. Most of the day had gone. But I could not stay here either. Should I be swayed from my belief the lowest path was best? Was it better to gain the heights farther above and hope for another clear view of the valley below?

After crawling back from the edge, I stood and decided to try for higher ground. At least then I could hope for a vista, for some revelation that would show me where I ought to be. So I turned my face upward to the land I had so recently scorned.

I stumbled through trees and over branches, sliding backwards, more than once, on the leaves the wind had strewn across the ground. Just as I despaired of ever reaching the valley, I heard the sound of bells. Faint and indistinct, they echoed in the wood about me. Though I could not discern their direction, they gave me hope.

The higher I climbed, the more trees gave way to rocks, until finally I broke from the wood altogether and stood on a large, flat expanse of rock that thrust out from the earth around it. There were other crests that were higher still, a series of them that seemed to reach up to the sky. But standing where I was, I could see a steeple silhouetted in the afternoon's sinking sun.

If that was the village, then there must yet be a road. And if I could find the road, then all hope was not lost. Turning my back to what lay behind me, I fixed my eyes on what lay before me.

***

I do not know how long I walked. After a while, the sun set and the moon, a poor pale sliver of its fulsome self, rose. It did not give enough light to reveal my steps, but it illuminated the mountain behind me. I did not have to see where I was going just so long as I kept myself from where I had been.

I made noise enough to warn any man or beast of my coming, but at least the sound of my steps made it impossible for me to hear anything else. If any creature were following me, I did not wish to know it.

Hunger dogged my steps. It filled my belly with sharp, insistent pangs. When dawn came and I could stand it no more, I picked up a few chestnuts from the hundreds that dotted the ground. Little solace they gave for I could not crack them with my teeth. I stopped for a moment, and kneeling, sifted through the layered leaves in search of a rock. Upon finding one, I used it to bash the husks and I peeled and then ate several as I walked along.

Even in this wilderness, I heard church bells toll the appointed hours. Terce passed and then sext and none. Whipped by the wind, clouds rose and hid the sun. The air had not been warm before, and now it attacked my face with a bitter sting. Vespers would soon be upon me, and with it, the setting of the sun.