The Lost Knight
In spite of the pleasant spring day, she sat in a room made dark with drawn shades: lit only by large candles upon tables and shelves. On the desk in front of her were set many photographs, strips of negatives, cameras, lenses and trays of photographic chemicals. An 8mm projector was guzzling the last of a film roll as she shut it off. She then picked up and closely studied several photos, before placing them within the illumination of a candle to her right.
Cruel, merciless eyes examined the photographs, down to the tiniest details. Eyes affixed within plentiful mascara, which sparkled in the candlelight. Her face was proportioned and beautiful, but strangled with excessive makeup, where a pitiless sneer was gouged between her angular cheeks. In spite of her good looks, Nioma Jentiss was one inhumane soul— however well liked she thought she appeared to most within the county.
The photo’s Nioma studied were of people, appearing to be taken as if the subjects were completely unaware. Sometimes shot from a distance, other times with a crowded, compressed background, indicating the picture was shot with a zoom or telephoto lens. She placed aside two photos and cleared away the others.
She carefully sprinkled a dark powdery substance atop the face of each subject, then raised the snapshots over the candle and gently circled it. The flame underneath did not burn the photo paper, but instead created red, blood-like droplets on the opposite, exposed side. Nioma again studied her work, but after a short time became clearly unsatisfied with the results. She cursed aloud just as Tilda walked in.
“Why are you bothering me now?” screeched Nioma, clenching a fist in jerky spasms. The jagged scowl across her face for most, would have been a clear warning to leave her alone, but to Tilda, it was an everyday part of life.
“When am I not bothering you?” she answered, pursing her lips sourly as she glanced at the desk, quite used to seeing the practice of black magic before her.
“I see,” countered Nioma. “You’re hinting that I pay no attention to you and your needs? A good for nothing, lying thief, on her way to a jail-ridden future. When you’re found rotting in some alleyway, will it be because I’ve so mercilessly neglected you?”
Utterly and horribly cruel as this was, Tilda had endured a short lifetime of it, and she responded the way she always did, by hunkering down in numbing self-preservation. She took a deep breath and expelled, if only metaphorically, her mother’s vile words back out at her.
“I just want to ask a quick question, then I’ll leave you alone,” said Tilda.
Nioma had already gone back to her work, as if whatever Tilda wished to speak about had no importance.
“Ask,” she said flatly.
“Was there a boy and his mother that you just picked?”
Suddenly curious, Nioma looked up. “What concern is that to you?”
Tilda hesitated, as if summoning some inner courage. “I never told you about this, but there is a boy at school. He’s a friend and he’s, well, special to me.”
“How revoltingly cute. You have a sweetheart. What’s his name?”
“His name is—” Tilda again hesitated, her fear to speak the name slightly straining her voice. “His name is Jack Salento.”
Nioma now studied her daughter as close as she examined her photos. “That’s too bad,” she said matter-of-factly. “I suggest you forget about him right away.”
Tilda’s lips and mouth quivered as the horrible realization set in. “No! You didn’t pick him, did you?”
“Both him and his wretched mother. How did you know, Tilda?”
Tilda’s eyes filled with tears. “Don’t make him go away! He didn’t do anything wrong!”
“That has nothing to do with it,” said Nioma coldly. “How did you know?”
“He told me he was having the dreams!”
“As he should,” stated her mother, emotionless. “They only have days left. And stop that crying now!”
Tilda wiped her eyes, then rubbed her face and head in anguish, trying to control the fury that now burned inside her. She began pulling at her own hair so tightly that she yanked out several large tufts.
In the next instant, Tilda snapped. With a shout, she lunged forward at her mother, swiping all the photos off the desk, and knocking over the large candle. As it began burning some of the photographs, Tilda pounded the desk. As Nioma frantically put out the flames on her floor, Tilda shook a wild fist at her.
“I swear if you take Jack away I’m going to the sheriff! I’ll tell him everything I know, about what you’ve done to so many people! I swear I will!”
With that, Tilda ran out of the dark room as her mother struggled to save what she could of her burned photographs.
The professor grinned with surprise as he accelerated the truck along the road. “Quick thinking,” he said to Marie. “Your parting words to the sheriff just cleverly created a diversion for us.”
“Hopefully,” she replied, “by the time they get as far as the highway—”
“—We’ll be back at the house,” said Courinn. “Now we really have no choice, Marie has just sent the whole Gulliver County police force to guard the road.”
“But perhaps there will be little, if any watch within the woods, especially along the Woodland Trail,” said the professor. At least for the next day I should think.”
“Did I do the right thing, professor,” asked Marie, “talking to my father?”
“I’m certain you did, dear. I could discern some sense of relief in his voice, to hear in your own words that you were okay. But now, let’s focus on the task at hand, for it has just become a good deal more difficult.”
An hour later, Perion was helping Marie adjust the light pack on her shoulders. It was far better than carrying a book-bag. They were standing at the glade perimeter surrounding Professor Mifflin’s home. The sun was already high up, nearing one o’clock in the afternoon. Brage and Tybain were also steadying their packs and readying other things they would be taking with them. The professor had decided to send these three boys along with Courinn as Marie’s travel companions, keeping the other three behind with him. He often did this for their excursions into the woods, as to minimize the risk to all of them at once. Alternatively, he also sent Zendara, Dyllion and Theel together, as those groups seemed to work the best with one another.
Marie watched as Theel and Dyllion now helped Brage and Tybain pack some strange things with them: small tied bundles of twigs, along with six-inch nails of an odd color and several small pouches of salt.
“What is that stuff for?” she asked curiously.
“Oak, ash and thorn bundled together as well as salt and iron are protection against some of the dangers within the wood,” answered Brage.
“Everything all set?” asked the professor.
Brage keyed the button of his HT radio. “We’re ready.”
“Ready to go,” came Zendara’s voice, responding from somewhere, Marie supposed, inside the house.
“Remember, keep to the north of the suspension bridge,” the professor warned. “Even with Marie’s diversion, we can’t be sure if the sheriff’s kept his men along the trail.”
“How much farther north?” asked Brage.
“About a mile, until the river junction,” answered the professor. “There you will meet someone. If he feels you are charming and interesting enough, he will take you west along the River kindrane, almost as far as the Spellhollow Pass. From there make your way southwest along the mountain ridge until you get to the Gwindylo. You must pass the lake around its eastern shores, before crossing over the rivers mouth. In the region beyond that— to the best of my knowledge— lies the Rainbow’s End.”
“And how do we find it exactly?” asked Courinn.
“With your skill and a bit of luck,” admitted the professor. “We’ll be in constant contact with you on this channel, which I’ve encrypted for security and from anyone’s else’s prying ears, such as the sheriff.”
Mifflin addressed the boys sharply. “Take care to not stray from the Kindrane at its bend. Not far off as you well know is the haunted mansion of old. And from there northwards is ever more perilous.”
“Is the mansion still dangerous to approach?” asked Courinn.
“It is,” said Mifflin. “One of its two caretakers, who watches it by day until sundown is vile and wicked and fortune forbid he catches you on the premises!”
“Easier said than done,” said Tybain. “Isn’t that one of the most bewitched tracts of the whole wood, where the grounds and distance change and one easily finds themselves miles from where they thought they were?”
“That’s why it will be important that you gain passage along the river,” explained the professor. “Only upon the water will you be free of that region’s hex and not risk being lost. You are each in good company with some sharp heads about you. Good luck.”
Theel exchanged an unusual handshake with Perion and Brage.
“Don’t get lost,” said Dyllion sarcastically to Tybain with a puckish jab to his arm.
“Unlike you, I study our maps,” he replied.
The five of them departed with a creeping uneasiness hanging over them; they knew they were undertaking no small task.
Starting at a good pace, Brage and Perion led the way. They followed a fairly well trodden path for almost a mile, but then had to leave it and veer to their right, heading northwest. The path they turned from led to a bridge over the Quinowa River, which spanned it as part of Luck’s End Loop. If the sheriff were at all suspicious of Marie’s diversion, he or his men would be waiting there.
Marie noticed the boys always kept to the same formation: Brage in the lead, Perion closest to her and Courinn, with Tybain remaining behind them all. She guessed this was a well-drilled exercise for them. She also noticed how keen their senses and awareness seemed to be. They were young like her, but they seemed years older in many ways.
At one point, they passed by several structures that looked ages old. They appeared to have once been ancient forts or outposts, partially destroyed as if they had not quite withstood some kind of attack. Marie stopped and curiously stared at this a long moment. Perion turned, noticing she had halted. He reacted with concern, seeing where they were. Before he could take a step, Marie was gently nudged on by Tybain coming up behind, confirming this was no place to linger. She then saw Brage speaking quietly into his radio, presumably to Professor Mifflin. As Marie moved on, she caught a glimpse of something within the decrepit outpost. Something, she realized was eerily staring back at her from the shadows, something she could have sworn had loathsome, frog-like features. In the next moment whatever it was, vanished.
He drove slowly, with no clear direction in mind. Turning here, then there, past the long familiar places he had known all his life. James Meehanan replayed in his mind the happier times he once shared with Anna, his wife: their years of courting, during which he had always given her the utmost respect. They were engaged fairly young and waited a full five years before they were married. James wanted to get firmly on his feet before their walk down the aisle—which he did, steadily building his own business as a tractor mechanic, until he was certain it was self-sustaining. He and Anna were married where everyone else in Highland Pointe had exchanged their vows, Sacred Heart Chapel.
He was a good, honest mechanic, who treated his customers with courtesy, which he received in return many times over— except that is, when it concerned the impassioned local beliefs. He was part of the ‘naysayers’ who had little patience for those who believed they all lived within an afternoon’s walk of demons and monsters. Through the years, he’d had his share of fierce, verbal battles with ‘the believers’ on the other side.
“Listen to yourselves,” James often preached to them, “you all sound like that buggy-eyed fellow in those old movies who was afraid of everything under his shadow! Ghosts and monsters, are you kidding me? Have you ever seen them? I didn’t think so and you never will, so do all of us a favor, stop scaring good folks and shut your mouths!”
“James, if you only knew what you were saying,” Kosko, the town druggist once told him. “Nothing good ever came of anyone spoutin’ how there ain’t nothing to fear. In most cases, it leaves a foul mark on ya’— mishaps, bad luck or worse. I’ve seen it more times than I can bear and I don’t wanna’ see it happen to you.”
Those words now echoed in James’s head as he drove. He had never considered Kosko’s warning with any meaning before, even after his wife’s disappearance. She was the victim of an animal attack, he reminded himself. They lived in a rural area. There had been confirmed reports of such things from time to time. It had to be, he always reasoned, a bear or mountain lion.
His thoughts turned to Marie and her last words to him a few hours ago over the sheriff’s radio. Who was she now with? He had to admit by the sound of her voice, it did not seem like she was being held against her will. Even if she were, he knew Marie was telling the truth about one thing: she had regained her memory. Someone could have filled her head with nonsense about what might have happened to her mother. But Marie remembered how she had acted that day. No one else knew that except the three of them: Marie, her mother and James.
And if Marie now remembered everything, James thought, what did she mean she had to do something about it? He recalled the few words of their brief conversation that disturbed him the most. His daughter said she couldn’t make him understand, because he did not believe. James knew how steadfast Marie was in her refusal to accept any of the woods’ stories. He knew, of course, he had directly influenced her opinion. He picked up Marie’s letter from the car seat as he drove. He glanced at the end. “Daddy, you made a mistake about one thing. Sometimes, magic is real.”
It was mid afternoon when James made a left turn, taking him through the market section of the village. He decided to head back home, sadly, to an empty house. As he drove by, a few people he knew— friends and other townsfolk— stood watching him. He waved but they did not wave back. This annoyed him, yet before he could fully process anything further, his eye caught something on a street corner.
A handmade sign recently nailed to a telephone pole clearly read: “MARIE MEEHANAN - Missing? Or Run Away?”
Under that, two more signs were nailed.“ANNA MEEHANAN - What Really Happened Three Years Ago?”
“JAMES MEEHANAN - What’s He Hiding?”
James stopped his car and stormed out. “Who did this?” he demanded as he furiously tore off the signs. Looking around him, he saw those he thought friends, now leering at him in fear and anger.
The police cars stood noiselessly in the midst of the road with their lights off, but the officers inside were alert and ready. If they weren’t, Sheriff Radich who sat in the lead car would have their heads.
The additional barriers he set up earlier that day along Oak Tree Road, leading away west and east from Highland Pointe, had so far brought no clues about Marie’s disappearance. The sheriff now realized they had been taken in by Marie’s ruse, and he was surely not going to be fooled again. He sat deep in thought next to his dozing partner, amidst the small hanging bells within his squad car; bells that were, according to old folktales, protection against demonic forces. The sheriff was renown for being one of the most superstitious men in the county.
A car appeared up the road, heading toward them. The handful they had already stopped in the last thirty hours had been merely local folk going about their normal business. This approaching car was no doubt just another innocent driver on his way home for dinner. Still, the sheriff and his men got out, ready to quickly respond if needed. The car came to a halt before the blockade stretched across the road. Police lights whirled as James Meehanan emerged with a noted stiffness, clearly indicating anger.
“We’ve got nothing,” said the sheriff, as his partner’s duty posture eased.
“Yeah, well I do,” answered James, as he snatched the signs he found from his car. He strode up, the tightness of his face looking like he had been chewing his teeth apart. “Isn’t it enough what I’m going through,” he stated, “that I have to contend with this?”
The sheriff quickly inspected the signs, shaking his head. “This was bound to happen. Forget it, it means nothing,”
“You tell me now, sheriff, right now,” demanded James, “what really happened to my wife? Everyone else seems to know!”
The sheriff stared hard at him. “We’ve been through this years ago, James.”
“You mean you told me what I wanted to hear,” James shot back. “But what’s the truth?”
“No, I was forced to agree on the only possibility you would accept. You never wanted to hear anything else.”
“What else? That the bogie man took Anna? Tell me what you really think happened to her! C’mon, tell me!”
The sheriff waved his hand, instructing his men to step away as he took a step closer to James. “You listen good,” he began, quietly, yet in earnest. “This here is Gulliver County. This ain’t Schenectady. Each year, I have to investigate at least a half dozen disappearances. Year in and year out, I see the same horrors and miracles. Folks become deathly sick with disease no doctor can explain, while others, terminally ill, are cured. Folks go blind or suddenly become mute. Weather-destroyed crops, mysteriously grown to mother-lode harvest, folks’ children possessed with sudden deformities, while others only get healthier into old age, it goes on and on. And ya’ know where they all were just before anything happened to them? That’s right, always in or near them woods.” The sheriff took a step closer to James, fully engaging him.
“The same woods,” he continued, “that you and your family were near when Anna was taken. You want to still believe some bear attacked her, then you believe it. But if you come demanding the truth from me, then I’ll tell you, straight out, whether you like it or not. Your wife was a victim of the same supernatural power that both torments and blesses us here, that lives with us, day in and day out and never leaves us alone. She was taken by something or many things that are downright unearthly, that live in there and sometimes prey on us, because most refuse to leave this place like I’ve begged you all to do for years. Even my own men aren’t safe, if you remember what a good deputy I lost back in fifty-six. Lost his mind, kidnapped a young girl, was never seen again. That’s what can happen here, it’s what happened to Anna and it’s what took Marie’s memory away. That’s the simple truth, James.”
James stared back, unblinking. “I’m sorry, I won’t accept that. What I do know is Marie ran off with someone who also believes in this bunk.” He lowered his gaze, staring at the road below as his shoulders slumped, the weight and burden of his anxiety clearly showing. “Do you have any idea what my daughter is up to?”
“She just regained her memory of the last three years,” answered the sheriff. “Who knows what’s going through her head now? Could be some kind of follow-up trauma. I don’t know. We’ll find her, somehow.”
They walked another hour before briefly halting for a rest and drink of water. Brage led them on again, listening carefully, touching the trees at certain points as if looking for a signal, then frequently turning to Perion, who would listen and shake his head, no. This went on until Brage at last slid his fingers over an oak bole and smiled as Perion nodded in agreement.
“The river junction is just ahead,” confirmed Brage. “Let’s find out who the professor thought might be able to help us.”
The ground gave way and they began traveling downhill, rather sharply. The sound of running water became clearer now and they could see something ahead through the trees: a gleam of some sort, as if light danced upon something very shiny and reflective. Coming to the end of the descent, they instantly understood what it was as the ground abruptly evened out again. Marie gazed ahead curiously.
Two currents of rushing water, the one nearest them almost twice as wide, crashed into each other before heading away south to their left. At the shoreline junction sat a huge figure, perfectly still upon a seat made of small mossy rocks.
Perion took Marie’s pack from her as he moved forward with Brage and Tybain. The boys exchanged quick glances, raised all their backpacks over their heads and waded through the waist high current. It appeared strong, but not enough to knock one over. Tybain reached the far bank while Brage and Perion passed the packs to him, before returning back, with Brage halting at midpoint. Once again, this appeared to Marie a trained tactic— or she reconsidered, could it have been simple intuition each of the boys shared and acted out with one another?
Perion approached with an outstretched arm. He first took Courinn by the hand and guided her, passing her on to Brage, then Tybain, who helped her out on the far side.
Then it was Marie’s turn. The water was not as cold as she thought, but the current was indeed strong and she held on to each boy’s hand firmly, crossing to the other side. Marie noticed along this new bank a large raft of thin, bound logs was tied to a tree.
Before them sat a great knight, clad head to toe in brilliantly shining armor: from the iron-plated sabatons for his feet to his greaves and plate armor for his legs, leading up to a breastplate with thick chain mail and large visor helmet. Etched within the midst of his steel chest was an elaborate coat of arms. He never moved or made any gesture indicating he knew they were there.
The knight sat with his hands protected by heavy gauntlets, held outwards, palms up over his bent knees. This gave the dual impression of someone either asking for or offering something to any who passed by. A massive broadsword and shield sat upright beside him; thin strands of ivy covered them and parts of the knight, suggesting that neither had moved for quite some time. Yet, in spite of this shining spectacle, all their eyes wound up staring at the same thing— the object directly in front of the armored soldier, between his propped up knees: a rather large and unadorned sealed chest.
They all approached. The knight was even larger up close than Marie realized. The sealed chest betwixt his knees seemed to beckon to them.
“Is he alive?” Marie asked, unable to see if any part of him stirred from breathing.
“It’s certain he is,” answered Brage.
Marie studied the knight. He was so still he resembled a statue. Then she noticed a large, ugly horsefly flitting about the knight’s helmet, landing and crawling in and out of the visor. Marie thought to herself how annoying it must be for the poor knight.
Marie stepped up close. “Hello, sir,” she said. “How are you today?”
No answer came. Brage cleared his throat. “We’ve been sent from Professor Mifflin,” he said, slowly and clearly. “He thought you might be able to help us.”
There was something at the mention of that name, a slight, almost imperceptible movement of his head— or was it his shoulder? Marie could not quite tell, but it appeared that under his great helmet this knight was now listening with some curiosity.
“We need passage west along the river,” added Tybain impatiently and straight to the point as he usually was.
Then the knight clearly moved. His upright, extended hands lowered slightly towards the chest in front of him. As small as the movement was, it was so jarring and unexpected after the knights’ complete stillness that Marie jumped.
“The chest,” said Perion. “Does he want us to open it?”
“Yes,” answered Courinn, tapping her brow. “Now I remember this knight’s story. My father once told it to me.”
Marie grinned in amazement at the knowledge her friend carried in her head.
“Tell us,” said Perion and Brage, almost in unison.
“This knight,” began Courinn, “sits here day after day with no food or water, just as you see him. He sits in repentance and shame for having lived a life of cruel wickedness.”
“It appears he was once very great,” said Brage. “That crest of his looks vaguely familiar.”
“He was once great and proud and noble,” continued Courinn, “but was corrupted and became a living nightmare, a soldier broken of the goodness in his heart. For all the evil he has wrought, he sits here now. To offer himself in service to those, and only those whose hearts are true.”
“And what about the chest?” asked Marie.
“The chest determines who is virtuous and who is not,” said Courinn. Anyone seeking his help must open it. What they do then determines the knight’s course of action.”
All of them curiously stared at the plain chest.
“Which of us will open it then?” asked Brage. “Or do we do so together?”
“It is meant to be opened by a single person at a time,” stated Courinn.
One of the knight’s hands suddenly darted out, seizing Marie by the wrist. She jumped with a shriek as the knight turned up her arm, clearly revealing the wound she received from the gight demon. He then gently released her, gesturing her toward the chest.
Courinn slowly nodded. “He has picked you, Marie. You bear a wound that he knows only a true and brave heart could have survived.”
“Me?” Marie looked over to Perion, as if to gain his consent. He also nodded. She glanced back at the chest. She then took a deep breath. Slowly, carefully and reverently Marie bent down and began to open it ... .