Enigmatic Pilot_ A Tall Tale Too True - Kris Saknussemm [56]
The old woman’s voice had taken on such a dramatic tone that Lloyd instinctively slipped from the rocker onto the sofa. But when he went to pat the hound he found that it was as stiff as a statue, sculpted into a position of peaceful repose. He could have sworn he had heard it snoring, like his father.
“He … he’s dead!” Lloyd recoiled. “You’ve—”
“Old Lazarus is sleeping very soundly, but he keeps me company,” the old lady answered, and blew out the lamp. “Now reach out your hands to me. I have something to give you. A token of my faith in you. And a sign of our trust in your judgment and discretion.”
Lloyd clambered to his feet in the dark, unnerved by the stuffed dog.
“Take my hands, child,” Mother Tongue whispered.
He heard a sound that he guessed was the cat lighting on the floor as the old woman rose. Bracing himself for the feel of her soft white talons, he thrust his own hands forward. Into his moist palms plopped two warm spheres as his fists tightened. Polished jewels, he imagined—fabulous treasures from some far corner of the world.
“Good night, Lloyd,” Mother Tongue said. “For now.”
Lloyd stuffed the jewels into his pocket and stumbled toward the door. Blazon was waiting outside with a flickering lamp. Without comment or question, he led the boy back the way they had come, where Schelling greeted him with a brusque presentation of his calcium-stained tooth. The grotto and the passageways seemed to be much darker now. Why not turn on the marvelous lights? The humpback refused to be engaged on this or any point, and so the boy had to mind every step as they climbed back up to the cemetery. Once they were free of the tomb, the blindfold was reinstated and Lloyd was encouraged back into the dogcart. Their voyage was repeated in reverse without any words being exchanged, Lloyd’s head swirling with questions and worries—and hopes—until, lulled by the legato rhythm of the boat, he slipped into a hypnagogic drowse. When he came to himself again, the boat was docking back at the ferry landing and the air smelled very late—or very early. One of the powerful black men set him down on the pier, and Wolfgang Schelling removed the blindfold.
“All right, Lloyd,” he said. “Hurry home. I will see you in the afternoon. But be careful. Not everyone means you as well as we do.”
These words echoed in the boy’s mind as he raced back toward the stable, wondering if his parents would be awake and waiting for him—and what he was going to say if they were. The streets were dark but for the lights of a shuttered tavern. No one else appeared to be around. Still, there was a sinister sense of watchfulness about the lanes and it wasn’t until he was all the way back to the familiar smell of the glue renderer’s and the stable door that he felt calm again. Gratefully, his parents were both sound asleep—Hephaestus hog-breathing with drink, Rapture sighing low, sometimes saying something the boy could not understand (which was not that unusual at any time).
At the rear of the stable, Lloyd sneaked off with one of his father’s hoarded matches and scraped it hard to make enough light to examine the prize that Mother Tongue had entrusted him with. He expected gemstones plucked from some harvested diadem, but he gasped and almost dropped the match and set the rank-smelling barn on fire when he saw that what she had given him was two brilliant green glass eyes.
What did it mean?
Was the ancient woman really blind, or was this just some trick? After he recovered from his shock, Lloyd extinguished the match, but the two orbs seemed to continue glowing, as if his recognition had triggered some covert luminosity within them. Or is it in my