"Don't be afraid of the Child Catcher." - Heather Ripley (Jemima), Red Carpet News TV, 2014

Chapter 1 – The Children of Vulgaria

This was the least busy train station Gina had ever seen. It was the middle of the day, too. Kind of made the place eerie, she thought. Shoot, if I'm spooked by that already, she told herself, how am I going to do what I've been called here to do? Is this place that terrible? No one wants to come here? I don't remember it that way.

Vulgaria. Since the Baroness Bomburst's law forbidding children, Gina had not been to visit her grandfather at his toyshop in ever so long. He had certainly made the trip to her town to see the family, but Vulgaria remained a distant memory for her and her siblings. Now, she was being summoned back to serve the community in a way no one else was brave enough to.

Now, there was something familiar and welcome, she smiled. Her grandfather, Johannes Bergenkraft, was waiting for her outside the platform with his delivery cart with a look of proud adoration on his round, mustached face. He stepped away from the driver's bench to embrace her.

"Gina, meine schnucki," he cooed and gave her a hard kiss on the side of the head. "So good to see you."

"Good to see you, too, Grandpa. I'm looking forward to seeing Vulgaria again."

Johannes chuckled, somewhat derisively. "Well, at least someone still sees it with the mind of a child. It's going to be quite different from the way you remember. It's been a long, long time."

"Well, based on your story, I'm prepared for gritty. Ready to dig my heels in and," she held up her hands as if she were holding pistols, "clean up this here town."

"Just promise me you won't get too ahead of yourself." He took a seat on the driver's bench, taking the reins while Gina went around the other side. "This place is not to be trifled with."

"I'm the rational one. It's God you need to worry about. This was His crazy idea in the first place."

"I know your faith is strong, Gina. But you really must play by the rules in Vulgaria, or it could cost all of us."

"Yyyeesh. Lay it on thin, Grandpa."

Johannes smiled apologetically, though his voice remained stoic. "I don't say that to frighten you, Gina. You're already so brave to be undertaking this. It's just that I'm going to be worried about you every day that you leave the toy shop."

Gina gave her grandfather a one-armed squeeze. "God put this together, and He's gonna finish it with our good in mind. It's the Bombursts who need to be worried. 'Pharaoh, let my people go,' you know?"

Johannes chuckled nervously. "I love you, Gina. But don't talk that way outside of the toy shop, please."

Are these people so deadbeat that no one can speak of triumph and hope? Is hope something you get on the black market in Vulgaria? But Gina did not belabor her point.

As Johannes and Gina made their way across the gently rolling Vulgarian countryside in the bright sunshine and tasty, spring breeze, the Bomburst castle rose majestically over every rooftop, taking Gina's breath away. How lucky am I to come live in a wondrous place like this? More accurately, how lucky am I to come live dangerously in a wondrous place like this?

The moment they entered the village, it was like entering a time capsule of her childhood, taking her back to those long-buried, familiar sights and smells. The market was full of people buying and selling and, with it being school hours, it didn't readily strike Gina as odd not to see any children. Interestingly enough, it seemed to her that she was, however, the youngest adult in the entire village. Like a child, the sight of the street market made her feel jubilant and adventurous.

Gina was plunged even further into her childhood with the smell of the wood shavings and sight of her grandfather's talent displayed all across the walls and the workshop table in his toy shop. With no children around, these things were certainly piling up. Johannes had told her that his only customer these days was the fully grown Baron. Weird, she thought. In a land where children are forbidden, the ruler acts like a big child? Hmm. I mean, not that you can't be a collector and enjoy gadgets, but, from what Grandpa's said, the man seems to be overly consumed by being entertained.

Gina took her things upstairs to the small loft where there were two guest beds. She took the one closest to the little square window overlooking the weedy, fenced-off area called "the backyard." Even as children, she and her siblings hadn't used it much. There was much more room and fun to be had in the plaza out front. So, Johannes used it for storage and scraps that were too cumbersome to keep in his small dwelling. The bed was almost what could be deemed "child-sized," but it didn't really affect Gina, as she was small in stature, a thirty-year-old the size of a healthy thirteen-year-old boy. It certainly had a dollhouse smell – the smell of having been untouched in an attic for decades. And being as her grandfather was a man, she couldn't've expected him to think to wash the sheets and pillows and air out the mattress now and then. Of course, if he never expected to have young guests ever again, why would he?

After a dinner of fresh, cooked vegetables from the market and a few strips of lamb, Gina helped her grandfather pack some toys into two crates to take to the children she would be meeting that night.

Gina marveled at three, very detailed war ships on the work table. "Wow, Grandpa. Are you sure these are for kids? They seem pretty sophisticated."

"Oh, no, those are for the Baron," Johannes said. "I get requests for battle toys very frequently, as the Baron gets a little too excited and ends up breaking them. So, I always make more than he requests because I know I'll be replacing them in due time. These have working canons." With visible pride, Johannes shuffled over to the nearest ship and pointed as he explained that little metal canon balls would be loaded in the front, one at a time, like a real canon, and then launched by a spring-loaded pin when the back of the canon was pulled out and released. Gina stood amazed by the demonstration. "And, this time," Johannes moved down to a section of table behind Gina, "the Baron is looking for a new challenge in his bath time battles." Johannes picked up a smooth, green sea monster. It's four fins and long neck were suspended on weighted ball bearings that moved freely. In water, especially moving water, it would look as though it was actually swimming.

"Grandpa, that is incredible. You work entirely too hard for this man," Gina marveled.

"He pays well. Tax exempt."

"Amen! I think I might move to Vulgaria and go into the family business."

As the sun was going down, each carrying a crate of toys, Gina followed Johannes to the old, brick church down the street, where the town was to have a meeting to introduce Gina. This is the most deadbeat debutante party I've ever seen, Gina joked with herself. Still, she found the mustiness of the place charming, casting all the more mystery on Vulgaria. This looks like a cozy place to come and pray, Jesus. We're gonna be havin' some date nights in here.

One of the town elders stood, quelling the murmur. "Thank you all for coming tonight to welcome our heroine. Gina, Johannes? Will you stand up, please?"

They did so.

"This is my granddaughter, Gina," Johannes said, putting a loving hand on her back. "She has volunteered to be our runner and a tutor to the children underneath the Baron's castle."

"My gosh, Gina," one woman said, "you are so brave. None of us can really tell you how grateful we are. We miss our children so much and it means the world to both us and them to have someone looking after them."

"Well, God put you all on my heart," Gina said. "And when God says 'go,' you've gotta go. But at least you know that He's got a plan to work things out in your favor."

"You sound like just the person we need," the old man who introduced her said.

"The Baroness sounds pretty harsh if you all feel relegated to hiding your children away from the village," Gina posited as a veiled question.

"She's deathly afraid of children," a woman spoke up. "To rid the village of them, she hired a terrible man they call the Child Catcher to round them up in the worst possible way. God forbid you should ever run into him. Like a wicked Pied Piper, he used to come here with his carriage, all dressed up in colorful, carnival style and entice the kids to come inside for treats. Once inside, he would cart them off to the palace, never to be seen again. Who knows what the Baroness did to them. That's when we decided to hide the rest of our children."

"I understand," Gina said. "Well, God feels your pain, which is why He sent me. We've got this."

Johannes then lead Gina to the corner where satchels, crates, and baskets of food, clothing, and other supplies, including the toys they themselves had brought had been gathered for departure.

"We gotta carry all this?" Gina grimaced. "To the castle?"

"Well, seeing as this is a first trip in a very long time," Johannes said, "there's more than you will be taking on a daily basis."

The two began loading themselves up with as many satchels and baskets as they could comfortably carry.

"Gina," Johannes continued, "you will be coming and going very near to the castle each day, so, it's best that you visit the children by the cover of night each day or every other day that you go."

"Isn't that their bedtime?" Gina half joked.

"Well, you don't have to be there very long. Perhaps an hour or so, long enough to bring them food and clothes and to give them a school lesson in something."

"Man, that's rough only getting an hour of human interaction outside of hiding. What do they do all day?"

"You see how terrible it is for them."

"No one's thought to knock off this witch on the throne? There certainly seems to be enough of you to do it. Heck, I'm sure I could get the kids to do it."

"Well, Gina, there are a lot of dangerous factors involved and we just haven't had the right strategy yet. You are our best plan until then."

"Well, we'll see what God has up His sleeves."

Holding a lantern in front of them, Johannes led the way towards Castle Bomburst.

"None of these good-for-nothings can help us carry food and clothes to their own kids?" Gina remarked with bland disgust.

"Gina, the key is to not draw attention to ourselves," Johannes explained. "If we have too many of us, that might reduce our ability to go unseen this close to the castle."

"Three or four people would be too much?" Gina asked. I am a small female, people, not a rented mule.

But Johannes made no reply.

You guys seem to be running a really slipshod operation here, Gina thought. I'm inclined to pity the kids on those grounds alone.

Gina felt like they had been walking forever before they reached the wooded buffer around the front of the castle. As quietly as possible, they made their way through the trees to a row boat on the muddy shore of the lake. As the trees thinned, Johannes put out the lantern so that the light would not be a beacon on the water to anyone even casually watching from inside the castle.

Gina watched with some enchantment as the castle began to loom over them as they rowed closer and closer to the mouth of the cave. Just as they reached it, Johannes put down the oars long enough to light the lantern again. The lantern still did not cast a tremendous amount of light, which made Gina feel like they were floating in a dark abyss in a wooden bowl. The sound of the invisible water sloshing against the boat echoed in the undetectable tunnel.

It did not last long, however, for there was a golden glow up ahead. Johannes rowed into a cavern that looked like an old, underground, unfinished part of the castle that had been flooded. It was lit by large, iron lanterns attached to the rock walls. Gina forgot about being tired and sore while being enchanted by her mysterious surroundings.

All around the rocks and structures, children with dirty faces and dirty, torn clothes were sitting, talking, or finding some kind of loose debris to play with. Like small animals to some spilled food, the nearest children began to swarm towards the boat, their murmurs rising.

"These are your students," Johannes said with a sort of tired resignation.

But Gina was filled with thrill. "You call this a prison?" she squeaked, grinning ear to ear. "This is a pirate cove! You're not fugitives – you're pirates! Oh, we are gonna have some fun in here. I'd set up shop in here, were it not for the lack of windows."

Johannes pulled up to the lowest platform and began unloading the supplies, which the kids clambered for.

"Take it easy," Johannes said. "Make sure everybody gets something. Children! This is your new teacher, Gina. She is my granddaughter."

Gina received multiple greetings, though the attention diverted quickly back to the supplies.

"How long has it been since anyone has come back here?"

"I don't know," Johannes said. "I've lost track. My business is with the Baron."

"Uh, there are children here you could be bringing toys to, Grandpa. Collect the money in the village and then bring the toys. Is this the first time you've ever thought of that?"

"Well, Gina, again, we haven't had anyone like you."

Gina decided to stop asking questions. The only way from here was up. Yar-har!

Well, Jesus, Gina prayed as she was making her bedtime preparations by lantern light upstairs in the toy shop, I think You're onto something.

I thought you might get creative once you saw the grotto, He replied warmly, His smile detectable to Gina.

Although…it does bug me a little that hiding the children in a cave without seeing to them would seem counter intuitive to a parent. Maybe. Just seems like that to me. I guess they don't have much of a choice, seeing as the law against children is militarily enforced.

Cowards.

The coldness in His voice surprised Gina. My Lord! she gasped, somewhat laughing. How can You say that? Okay, I'm interested. What?

Rather than teach their children to face wickedness, they shelter them. And while they shelter them, neither do they lift a finger against evil.

Hmmmm. I see your point. It's a rather startling point, and probably one held by only You. But not that I'm not used to you tipping the tables over like that. I do feel like there's a fishy sort of negligence going on, here.

I'm going to teach you much in Vulgaria, Gina. The people and situations here are not going to be as they seem or how the populace has come to accept them with woeful complacency. Keep your spiritual eyes and ears open. Case in point, you see a grotto where parents have stowed their children for protection. What I am showing you is a prison that keeps the children from wisdom and maturity. To make a different point, you also saw a neglected grotto as a treasure trove of creativity and imagination. Those were your spiritual eyes at work, seeing the potential as I see it. And that is the mindset I want you to have in Vulgaria. What you have to bring to the children for now will minister to them. And minister to you, as well. That's why I called you here. Just take it one day at a time, Gina. Trust that I am with you and guiding you each step of the way.

I will continue on faithfully, Lord. I declare Your wisdom and Your sight to be upon me always, in Your name. I pray for the mindsets that imprison these Vulgarians to be lifted and declare Your peace and Your strength and Your wisdom to fill them…in Your time, Lord, and in Your name. Amen.