The summary is actually a quote of an exchange between fabulous ThreeDots and myself, from yesterday. The following silliness is entirely my own responsibility, however as per usual she was nice enough to beta my ramblings.
Happy Halloween? š
It started when dust settled over the ruins of the city. We rebuilt and came together, and everything seemed to be on a good path. Hope and peace ruled once again. Even though we lost our hero, another took his place. Despite new foes, our city prevailed, fought back and rose from the ashes.
Kids of St. Swithin's relocated to the old Wayne Manor. The halls were tall and spacious, at first intimidating to a group of underfed children. Cold marble floors echoed with every step, arched ceilings seemed impossibly far away. But they made it cozy and familiar, with drawings hanging below ornamental portraits, wobbly clay figurines accompanying alabaster busts on the mantelpieceā¦ All but the woods were made - theirs.
The mass of ancient trees right by the manor was another thing altogether.
I always taught the boys that superstition is irrational. God made good and bad, but angels and demons were more of an idea than a reality. It is our own responsibility to be good men, I used to say. No demons roamed this Earth, only people.
But, there were stories. At first I thought, well, since there was a private graveyard just at the precipice of the woods no wonder kids were spooked. But it turned out no one was afraid of ghosts, even with all those squeaky hinges, and dark corners, and deep cellars. No, they were afraid of something else entirely.
Bigfoot.
What prompted this was beyond me. After all, those kind of creatures seem much more likely to be dwelling somewhere rural and detached, like Montana or Colorado. Not anywhere near our cosmopolitan metropolis. Still, every week there were reports of its activity. God knows I tried to be the voice of reason, but even I started to have my doubts.
May the Holy Mother keep us safe.
The first time we discovered something odd was during a stroll. I always stressed how important it was for boys to have enough physical activity, so whenever weather allowed, we went out for a lesson out under a thick canopy of trees, or sitting at the shore of the lake. It was during one of our early explorations when I was summoned by an excited shout from Billy, our resident troublemaker. He reminded me so much of Robin, or as he was inclined to be called until recently, John Blake. So much light in that child, in both of them, such unquenched thirst for knowledge. He waved me over to a place few steps away from our path.
There were footprints in the dirt and in the moss. An enormous outline pressed in the ground, step after step. Long stride suggested that whoever left those marks had to either be extremely tall or had unnaturally long legs. The gaps between each footprint were so big I barely could make an outline of the next one from my spot by the dent in the moss.
The discovery was a topic of discussion during dinner that day, but breakfast brought new exciting things (that Iron Maiden in the study on the ground floor was thankfully altered to be non-lethal), and we forgot about freakish marks on the ground and the being who left them.
But then, our food and some trinkets began disappearing.
Nothing too expensive or uncommon. I would have thought it a prank of one of the boys, if not for the game left at our doorstep after every theft. Sometimes there was a pheasant, or three hares, or a bunch of fish; all neatly tied up and hung so that no predators would get to the meat before it was received. There was always a scrap of paper, or some bark with "apologies for the inconvenience" or other remark of the kind written neatly. Surprisingly decorative handwriting for a thief and hunter.
The perpetrator was obvious. Always there were those colossal footprints nearby, sometimes even right under our windows.
I prayed for courage at nights, and forgiveness by day, and reasoned with myself and the rest of staff that, well, it was definitely a soul in need. Since the things stolen were of no real value, we decided to overlook each transgression, in the spirit of Christian forgiveness. After all, our Lord would never judge prematurely. And even the thief himself showed remorse and a surprising eloquence with his tokens of gratitude and written apologies.
Then, we saw him.
It was definitely a he. The Herculean silhouette, hunched but obviously powerful, was for a briefest of moments visible at the edge of the woods. The night was stormy and it poured icy ribbons of rain. I just got a word that we misplaced the biggest jar of marmalade and some chocolate, along with gallon of milk. Immediately I suspected our resident menace. Some divine inspiration urged me to rise up from my comfortable Chesterfield and look out the first floor window. And there he was. Casting one last look over his shoulder, his mighty legs propelling him forward with staggering speed, even despite the incessant flood of water, his silhouette for a flash of lightning starkly discernable from the mass of trees.
Who was that?
It turned out I wasn't the only one who decided to look out the window that night. The following day was spent in a buzz of speculations, but as it tends to be with young boys the consensus was reached resolutely by the evening.
It was our own private Wayne-Manor exclusive Bigfoot.
The alternative I feared was much less fantastical and infinitely more grim, so the only beings who heard my suspicions were Holy Mother and Our Lord.
Whether the creature we saw was real or not, and whether it was human or not, I ordered all children and faculty members not to delve into the woods on their own. From now on only organized excursions were approved; no running unsupervised, no foraging and no snooping at night.
Of course, we had several violations in the very first week since the rules were announced. Surprisingly enough, our very own Bigfoot seemed to work with me to prevent children from visiting the woods unattended.
Kevin, who on a dare went to run to the lake and back, came to the manor without his shoes. How he lost them? Even he wasn't sure how it happened. Or when exactly, for that matter.
Billy, Jake and Barry decided to camp the whole night in a well-known clearing. They snuck out just after curfew, and set on a familiar path. Only, the same route they took by day was suspiciously different at night. The track wound around trees and hills, and they were walking in circles for hours. During that time, someone planted rocks in their backpacks. While they were moving. When tired boys finally reached their destination, lit a fire and put up a tent, they were scared half to death by a bear. It never showed, but the roar it gave was audible even in the Manor, and for the remainder of the night it was snarling and snooping around the tent. By the sunrise, when they woke exhausted and groggy, it turned out some birds were flocking by the entrance of the tent, eating something off the ground and shitting all over their things.
Adam, our resident daredevil, said he would spend an hour after dark alone. After fifteen minutes he ran screaming back. I couldn't get a full sentence out from him for a whole day.
No one wanted to spend a night in the woods after that.
So we settled into a peculiar balance; we could be pretty sure no children visited the woods alone and after dark, and in return some things disappeared from under our noses. Inevitably, a token was left dangling at the kitchen entrance, along with a note. The most recent was a quote "The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness." I used that in my Sunday sermon, wondering who was the man who haunted our little community.
Was it someone we knew?
Was it someone we feared?
My suspicion of Bigfoot's identity was challenged very soon by his unusual actions.
The grounds were vast and we frequently saw a mob of deer grazing on the mews just outside the manor. One day I spotted a young doe limping. The next morning the same animal seemed much better - and had a bandage around its leg.
A blush of boys was trapped in the downpour in a hut by the lake. The shabby wooden construction was used to hide kayaks and oars, and it was out at the end of a little pier. Rain damaged the beams supporting the pier and the whole construction was in grave peril, all children along with it. Someone, or something, brought out some fallen trees from the woods, wallowed in murky and sludgy waters to place them so that it supported the hut long enough for rescue to come and fetch the kids.
Everything that needed repairs and was easily approachable was magically fixed under the cloak of darkness. Sometimes in absolute silence, other times with a hushed accompaniment of thinking hammer or slight groaning.
No one ever caught anything beyond a glimpse at our bona fide Sasquatch.
And then he did something that made me abandon my suspicions over who I thought he might be. He did a thing which no beast with self-respect would ever think of doing.
Our youngest, Owen, wandered away in confusion during a game of hide and seek. Those things happen sometimes, but him being the smallest and the most quiet child didn't help in discovering his absence. When we did, it was already darkening.
No one wanted to abandon the boy, but we debated who should go on a search and who could stay with the children. Some older boys volunteered going on a search as well, adding to our dilemma.
Before we found torches for all Owen appeared on the edge of the forest. He was alone, but there was obviously something in his hands. It turned out to be an old and tattered teddy-bear, with his head hanging barely attached by the single thread.
It was a gift from the Bigfoot.
Now, I had my fears. There are no fantastic creatures, only humans who behave either good or bad. I thought for a while whether our Bigfoot was someone who I saw once, someone rotten to the core, malicious and cruel.
But which monster helps the weak and lost, and scared?
As seasons turned we saw less and less of our resident monster. But he was still around, his ginormous feet leaving imprints even in the early November snow.
The Lord inspired me one chilly morning, when I was taking down two beautifully coloured ducks from a hanger we installed by the door. The note had a quote by Dalailama this time, and I smiled sadly, thinking what befell such an interesting and kind soul to be forced to forage, hunt, steal and hide. I glanced at the footprint frozen in the snow. There was no way he could steal shoes this big, no one had feet this size.
Then it dawned on me.
I told the teachers and our house keeper of my idea. Kids of course caught a wind of it too.
Three weeks later, after much debate and with help from many wonderful people I was standing on the edge of the forest, a pair of gigantic black boots in one hand, a box loaded full with chocolate, socks, drawings and the old teddy bear in the other.
Icy winter air stung the back of my throat when I took a last steadying breath before I spoke.
"We don't know your name. We don't know your story. What we do know is this - you are a friend. We have lived like neighbours for a long time, and for every act of kindness we would like to thank you a thousand times. God bless."
I left the boots atop the box in the snow, looked between the trees, now barren of leaves and colour, searching for anything unusual. It felt weird, talking to nothingness in vanishing daylight. But it was the right thing to do. I had the whole orphanage behind me, a boy in every window low enough to reach, all faces scrunched in concentration to see if maybe the creature emerges, against all odds and possibilities.
Of course, he didn't.
I smiled one last time and left my own card, with my own quote to him, a break in this quirky one-sided exchange.
It snowed heavily for the whole night, fluffy white flakes hiding the boots and even brightly coloured box. Nothing could be seen from the windows. So, right after breakfast we all spilled onto the grounds, in a flood of excited chatter and laughter, running to see if our gifts were received.
There was my note, with two words scribbled on the back.
We never saw the footprints of our Bigfoot again.
R&R!