Sang – Chapter 10
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"Now what?" Wilhelm wondered to his brother as he stepped into their room, "How the hell are we supposed to pull this one off?" He groaned, leisurely flopping down onto the bed.
"My thoughts exactly," Jacob admitted, mirroring his brother's sigh, "Even if there was no piper, how are we supposed to collect over a hundred children… from inside a forest?" He doubted, sitting beside Will and beginning to clean his glasses. "I mean four or even ten children I can see being possible. But a hundred and thirty? We'd need a pack of hunting dogs… or something." He finished, feeling completely stumped.
"And that's not the only problem; we also need to find out what really happened." Will persisted.
"Eh?" Jacob questioned, turning towards his brother.
"I'm not that dense Jake, even I could tell they weren't telling us the whole story." Will explained, sounding hurt. "I wonder why they lied." He continued, "Who could we tell anyways? We need the money; I'm sure they can tell that from the state we're in."
Immediately feeling guilty for his brother's assumption; Jacob stayed silent, not wanting to further offend Wilhelm.
"Am I really that dense Jacob?" He asked, sitting up from the bed and looking eye to eye with his brother. Seeing his expression, Will frowned, "Oh dear, it's even more serious than I thought." Instantly brushing it off with a laugh, he continued, "Anyways, what do you think everyone's hiding from us?"
"No Will… you're not." Jake said softly. "I think… I'm going to go out for a bit." He decided slowly; visibly caught up in his thoughts.
"You? Go out? What, did a pretty lass catch your eye?" Will wondered with an odd smile, "Be careful, don't get lost or anything." He added, kicking off his boots and making himself comfortable on the bed.
"Lass?" Jake clarified, "Not exactly." Leaving the rest up to his brother and his misinterpretation, Jacob gave him a small wave and headed out the door.
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Stepping out of the inn and into the street, Jacob realized that he had absolutely no idea which way he should be heading. Not wanting to get lost, he followed the street as it curved past the inn's stable. The neighborhood was perfectly silent and the only light was shed by a flickering street lamp which barely managed to illuminate the stable's entrance and a forlorn bench near the stable doors. Deciding that this was in fact the best place to wait, Jake stretched out across the bench and settled in. Prepared for a long wait, he pulled out his journal and began looking over his notes on the disappearances. As the night continued, Jacob was reduced to doodling in the margins; completely lost in his fancies and thoughts.
"You know," A voice murmured beside his ear, "All of that, it's wrong."
The voice jerked Jacob out of his thoughts, causing him to leap and fall oh-so-gracefully off the bench and land heavily on his butt.
"Herr, are you alright?" The voice, which Jake quickly realized belonged to Stille, questioned.
"Ahh, perfectly fine." The younger Grimm replied with a groan as he pulled himself back onto the bench. "Before scaring me to death, what were you saying?" He wondered, turning to face the youth.
"Oh. It's just that," He said, pointing to the now dusty journal. "You got some of it wrong."
"I got it wrong?" Jacob wondered, unconsciously brushing off the book as he flipped to the last page. "I couldn't have, I copied this word for word from what was said at the… Oh." He realized, looking from the book's pages to Stille. "Yes, it is technically wrong, isn't it?" Nodding, the adolescent continued.
"This and this and certainly this are wrong." He explained, dragging his finger along certain parts of the page. Leaning against the back of the bench, he continued. "The piper wasn't dressed in colorful clothes; he was dressed in beautifully dark shades of black. He certainly didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes, his hair was silver and his eyes were… very dark." He explained with a shudder while Jacob scribbled down the description as quickly as he could. "Secondly," The young man said with a sigh, "The whole town saw him, they just didn't want to tell you for what reason." As Stille talked slowly enough for Jacob to scribe, he saw the real story sprawl across the pages.
"You see," Stille began again, "Hamelin had been a fairly rich town for some while and everyone was benefiting from its prosperity. But one day, we started finding rats," He explained, the word almost a curse. "No one thought anything of it; the townspeople just bought in more cats. Then we started finding the cats dead, every one of them bitten to death by the vermin. At this the town began to worry, and we called in exterminator after exterminator. Each one gave us the same response; they said that this town was cursed." He spat, "We'd become desperate and had exhausted nearly every option, so when this stranger came into town and told us he could help, everyone jumped at the offer." With a sigh, he shook his head and continued, "The amount he asked for was outrageous, even given our circumstances, but as I said, we were desperate and my dear brother -the mayor- was persuaded by the townspeople to accept the offer, even though he knew we could never afford it." He clarified, moving to sit down on the bench, "We all figured that he'd never succeed and if he did, then we'd worry about it then. But, as you probably guessed, he did succeed, and when the payment never came, he came back and fetched it himself- although it wasn't exactly what we'd had in mind." He finished with a dry laugh,
"Oh." Jacob stated, somewhat shocked as he re-read the last few lines he'd scribbled down. "I… well, now it makes some sense." He concluded, although there was still one thing nagging at his mind. "Stille, how old are you?" He asked, hoping the question wasn't impolite.
"Me?" He wondered slowly, "Almost fifteen."
"But then," Jacob asked, "How come you weren't -didn't…?" He trailed off.
"Oh. That. I'm deaf as a post -as my lovely sister likes to put it." He replied, abruptly standing up.
"You are?" Jacob wondered, shocked that he hadn't quite noticed.
"Completely, but I can read lips." He continued with a smirk, "What I find is that there's always a difference between what people say, and what they mean." Stille explained with a small bow, "Actions always speak louder than words." He finished, turning to head down the street and slowly disappearing into shadows.
Suppressing a shiver, Jake gathered his pen and journal and headed in the opposite direction, back towards the inn.
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A/N: First off; Yey! I actually made it to chapter 10! I'm very excited at the thought and I hope everyone's been enjoying the story (as much as I have been writing it.)
Second, this new semester is going to be death, already have a ton of work and it won't get better from here but! I still plan on updating "frequently" so… yup! (I'm in a good mood; can't you tell?)
Also, thank you for the reviews!