Black Pearls - Louise Hawes [22]
"I want to see," the girl wailed as she walked. "Please, let me see."
But the piper turned his back on us, withdrew into the cave, and raised his hands. As if he had pulled down the cover of a stall or drawn the curtain on a puppet stage, the stone wall of the cave began to thicken and cover the entrance. Bit by bit, the hole sealed itself up, and though I raced back and beat my crutch against the rock, there was no stopping it. Soon there was nothing left but the moss-covered face of the mountain. It was as if it had stood that way for hundreds of years, as if there had never been a cave there at all.
The line of children that returned to Hameln that afternoon was a good deal shorter than the one which had set out in the morning. The blind girl, whose name was Berta, and I moved slowly, inching our way back to town. This time, of course, there was no music to urge us on, and my good leg had begun to throb, so that the poor girl's leaning on me made each step more painful than the last.
Berta told me she had stolen away from home without telling her mother. She had persuaded her little sister to come with her, but now feared what her parents might do when she returned. "I heard the music," she said, "and felt I would die if I did not follow the others. But now I have lost my little darling and must live all alone in the dark."
She stopped to wipe her tears, then leaned on me once more. My leg nearly folded under the renewed weight, but in truth I had begun to feel less sorry for myself. I could see, after all, and could walk where I pleased, slow as I was.
"I am happy for my sister, but what is to become of me, Emmett?" Berta seemed to grow more frantic as we drew toward the city gates. "My mother keeps me like a linnet in a cage. I am never allowed outside the house unless my sister takes my hand."
Sure enough, once I had guided her back to the small house from which she had snuck away at dawn, a woman rushed out and, without a word to me, hurried Berta inside. I never saw her again.
As for my homecoming, Father was clearly relieved when I walked through the door. "Good!" he said. "I have a new order for three stools and a hope chest." He set the work out between us on the bench. "I told the smith that thieving rat-catcher wouldn't want a cripple."
I did not bother to ask who might best be called a thief, the piper or the men who had refused to pay him. Instead, I kept my silence. For once, I looked forward to working at the bench, to a long stretch of hours during which I would not have to put my good leg to the test or lean my sore arm across my crutch.
As we set about the new orders, Father told me how the entire town was in an uproar, how all the mothers and fathers had missed their children after church. How they had scoured the streets until a nursemaid and two mothers reported that all the little ones had run after the piper. The women had called and called, had chased after the children, but the youngsters had hidden from them, then scampered out of sight.
When I confessed that I, too, had followed the piper, Father paid me more mind than he ever had before. He held my eyes while I talked, took in every word. He asked question after question, then decided he must visit the mayor once more. "We will send men into the cave," he said. "We will catch that wizard and make him sorry he ever set foot in Hameln."
But you know how it turned out, don't you? Everyone for leagues around has heard the story. The cave has not been found, nor has a single child returned to Hameln. All the parents are in mourning and the street down which the piper led his children's army has been renamed. Now we call it "Bunelose Gasse," the street of silence. The council has passed a law that no singing or music be allowed there, not that anyone feels like singing or play ing music, anyway. Hameln is a ghost town, with no little ones chasing down the roads, pleading