"Too many! There's just too many people here!" Nick stormed out of the
farmhouse, seething. His older cousin, who was sitting on the porch bench
reading a book, looked up with slight surprise.
"Goodness, Nick! What's got into you this time?" Dean asked.
"With everyone here visiting, all the cousins and aunts and uncles from the north and east and west and south, it just gets so crowded. Nobody notices or listens to anyone else!"
Dean sighed. "Nick, you've always been too sensitive that way. Ever since you were little, you never could put up with crowds. You were a right nasty little baby, if I remember correctly." He grinned. "Always with your face scrunched up, screeching."
Nick grinned. "Shut up, you." He turned and looked out over the farmland. "Just once, I wish it would snow properly in time for my birthday. Just once! None of this little grey rubbish."
Dean remarked drolly,"Ah, well, ask Santa for it, and maybe it will show up! Ho ho ho!" The only reaction Dean got for that comment, though, was a long silence from Nick.
"Dean, something will happen this winter. I can feel it."
Dean grimaced. "Ah, you're not off again about that, are you? Always worrying about what's to come."
"But this time it seems real!"
Dean closed his book and turned to go inside. "Nicky, try living in the present for once." He went in, shutting the door behind him.
"Don't call me Nicky!" Nick shouted after him uselessly. He sighed. "Nobody ever listens to me." Suddenly, he heard a step on the crunchy-frozen ground and turned. There had been nobody there a few seconds before, but now there stood a man before him, in a long dark high-necked jacket. He had a strong, bony head, with deep-set eyes and an arched nose fierce as a hawk's beak, a sweep of wiry white hair that sprang back from the high forehead, bristling brows and a jutting chin. Nick had no idea who he was.
"Greetings, young Nicholas," the man said in a deep voice that seemed to come from far beneath the earth.
"Er, who are you?"
"It is your thirteenth birthday today." There was no questioning at all in the stranger's tone. He held out a slightly wrinkled hand. "I have a . . . present for you." There was a small package in his hand, wrapped with brown paper and tied with a simple length of twine.
Nick hesitated slightly, still unsure of what was going on. The stranger grimaced.
"Oh, come now. Do you hear ticking?" He shook the package gently. "There is nothing in here that will come of harm to you . . . at least not from this thing directly." He sighed, and got a faraway look in his eyes. "Even if this were one of these foolish mail bombs that men create to cause harm, I strongly doubt it would do much to you..." He shook it off, and impatiently thrust the package at Nick. "Here, come now. I have not much time. Take it!"
Nick reached out and carefully picked up the package from the stranger's hands. The stranger smiled. "It goes now to the first of the Six, and the first to truly awaken. I will be seeing you again soon, young Nicholas."
Nick was a bit bemused at all this, but he had a wrapped present in his hands and knew what to do with it. He slipped the string off the package, and removed the paper hastily. Inside was a simple box. He slowly lifted the lid off, and inside he found a strange thing. It was a circle that he estimated to be about three inches in diameter, quartered by two lines, like a cross or a "plus" sign. It was made out of some black heavy metal that he guessed to be iron, and was slightly warm to the touch. He looked up, saying, "Here now, what's this-", and stopped in midbreath.
There was nobody there. No footprints were in the slush where the stranger had stood, and no other trace of him ever having been there could be seen. Nick heard the faint sound of music, but before he could catch it completely, it was gone.
A voice rang out from inside. "Nick! Ni-iick! Come inside! Dinnertime!" Nick sighed, slipped the iron circle into his pocket, crumpled up the wrappings, and went inside.
The next day, the skies were stuffed up with heavy gray clouds that almost seemed to reach all the way to the ground, and it was very cold. Again, trying to get away from all the chatter and noise, Nick took a walk. He headed out and away from the house, and as he walked, he pulled the strange iron circle out of his pocket and looked closely at it, running his fingers round the circle, and down the inner cross that quartered it. The surface of the iron was irregular, but though it showed no sign of having been polished, it was completely smooth - smooth in a way that reminded him of a certain place in the rough stone floor of his family's kitchen, where all the roughness had been worn away by generations of feet turning to come round the corner from the door. It was an odd kind of iron: deep, absolute black, with no shine to it but no spot anywhere of discoloration or rust. And it was cold to the touch, this time; so cold that Nick was startled to find it numbing his fingertips. He hastily put it back into his pocket, supposing that it had just picked up the temperature of the outside air, and completely forgetting that it had been in his nice warm pocket all this time. As he walked further out, the clouds began to lower, till it was very foggy, and Nick could hardly see where he was going. After stumbling around blindly for awhile, he finally stopped. He suddenly had the irrational feeling that something was pursuing him, and moved quickly aside to a tree that he could just barely see a few feet away. He went to the other side of it and huddled down against the trunk.
As he stood there, shivering, he began to hear hoofbeats, slightly muffled by the thick fog. His first impulse was to shout out for help, but a second, stronger instinct warned him to stay put; he would not want to meet up with this rider. The hoofbeats grew steadily louder until they seemed to be right next to him, and then faded off into the fog again. Nick let out a long sigh of relief, and turned around to try to find his way out of the fog and back home. He let out a great shout of surprise. A pair of giant carved wooden doors had loomed up out of the fog in front of him. There were zigzag symbols repeated over and over, in endless variation, on every panel, that you could never fix your eye on, for they seemed to change subtly as you watched. The wood of the doors was like no wood that he had ever seen; it was cracked and pitted and yet polished by age, so that you could scarcely tell that it was wood at all except by a rounding here and there, where someone had not quite been able to avoid leaving the trace of a knothole. If it had not been for signs like this, Nick would have taken the doors to be stone. His eyes slid beyond their outline as he looked, and he saw that all around them, faintly through the mist, was a quivering of things, a movement like the shaking of the air over a fire or over a paved road baked by a summer sun. Yet there was no difference in hear to explain it here. Nick looked closer, and to his surprise, found that these doors were standing on their own, with no house or barn behind them. He stepped back to survey them again, his hand slipping unconsciously into his pocket. Then he jerked it out again, for the circle was now quite warm and nice to the touch, where it had been freezing cold just a little while ago. He pulled it out of his pocket, holding it up to take a look at it, and got another shock. The iron circle had started to glow. He looked at the door before him, and saw that something had changed. The zigzag patterns were shifting again, but this time to form letters, and words, all across the door. Nick read it out loud, unconsciously shifting to a singsong type of voice.
When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back; Three from the circle, three from the track; Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone; Five will return, and one go alone.
As he finished the last line, the circle stopped glowing, and the doors creaked slowly open. He caught another hint of that delicate, lilting, bell- like phrase of music, and it was gone. Nick stepped through the doors, and they shut behind him.
"Goodness, Nick! What's got into you this time?" Dean asked.
"With everyone here visiting, all the cousins and aunts and uncles from the north and east and west and south, it just gets so crowded. Nobody notices or listens to anyone else!"
Dean sighed. "Nick, you've always been too sensitive that way. Ever since you were little, you never could put up with crowds. You were a right nasty little baby, if I remember correctly." He grinned. "Always with your face scrunched up, screeching."
Nick grinned. "Shut up, you." He turned and looked out over the farmland. "Just once, I wish it would snow properly in time for my birthday. Just once! None of this little grey rubbish."
Dean remarked drolly,"Ah, well, ask Santa for it, and maybe it will show up! Ho ho ho!" The only reaction Dean got for that comment, though, was a long silence from Nick.
"Dean, something will happen this winter. I can feel it."
Dean grimaced. "Ah, you're not off again about that, are you? Always worrying about what's to come."
"But this time it seems real!"
Dean closed his book and turned to go inside. "Nicky, try living in the present for once." He went in, shutting the door behind him.
"Don't call me Nicky!" Nick shouted after him uselessly. He sighed. "Nobody ever listens to me." Suddenly, he heard a step on the crunchy-frozen ground and turned. There had been nobody there a few seconds before, but now there stood a man before him, in a long dark high-necked jacket. He had a strong, bony head, with deep-set eyes and an arched nose fierce as a hawk's beak, a sweep of wiry white hair that sprang back from the high forehead, bristling brows and a jutting chin. Nick had no idea who he was.
"Greetings, young Nicholas," the man said in a deep voice that seemed to come from far beneath the earth.
"Er, who are you?"
"It is your thirteenth birthday today." There was no questioning at all in the stranger's tone. He held out a slightly wrinkled hand. "I have a . . . present for you." There was a small package in his hand, wrapped with brown paper and tied with a simple length of twine.
Nick hesitated slightly, still unsure of what was going on. The stranger grimaced.
"Oh, come now. Do you hear ticking?" He shook the package gently. "There is nothing in here that will come of harm to you . . . at least not from this thing directly." He sighed, and got a faraway look in his eyes. "Even if this were one of these foolish mail bombs that men create to cause harm, I strongly doubt it would do much to you..." He shook it off, and impatiently thrust the package at Nick. "Here, come now. I have not much time. Take it!"
Nick reached out and carefully picked up the package from the stranger's hands. The stranger smiled. "It goes now to the first of the Six, and the first to truly awaken. I will be seeing you again soon, young Nicholas."
Nick was a bit bemused at all this, but he had a wrapped present in his hands and knew what to do with it. He slipped the string off the package, and removed the paper hastily. Inside was a simple box. He slowly lifted the lid off, and inside he found a strange thing. It was a circle that he estimated to be about three inches in diameter, quartered by two lines, like a cross or a "plus" sign. It was made out of some black heavy metal that he guessed to be iron, and was slightly warm to the touch. He looked up, saying, "Here now, what's this-", and stopped in midbreath.
There was nobody there. No footprints were in the slush where the stranger had stood, and no other trace of him ever having been there could be seen. Nick heard the faint sound of music, but before he could catch it completely, it was gone.
A voice rang out from inside. "Nick! Ni-iick! Come inside! Dinnertime!" Nick sighed, slipped the iron circle into his pocket, crumpled up the wrappings, and went inside.
The next day, the skies were stuffed up with heavy gray clouds that almost seemed to reach all the way to the ground, and it was very cold. Again, trying to get away from all the chatter and noise, Nick took a walk. He headed out and away from the house, and as he walked, he pulled the strange iron circle out of his pocket and looked closely at it, running his fingers round the circle, and down the inner cross that quartered it. The surface of the iron was irregular, but though it showed no sign of having been polished, it was completely smooth - smooth in a way that reminded him of a certain place in the rough stone floor of his family's kitchen, where all the roughness had been worn away by generations of feet turning to come round the corner from the door. It was an odd kind of iron: deep, absolute black, with no shine to it but no spot anywhere of discoloration or rust. And it was cold to the touch, this time; so cold that Nick was startled to find it numbing his fingertips. He hastily put it back into his pocket, supposing that it had just picked up the temperature of the outside air, and completely forgetting that it had been in his nice warm pocket all this time. As he walked further out, the clouds began to lower, till it was very foggy, and Nick could hardly see where he was going. After stumbling around blindly for awhile, he finally stopped. He suddenly had the irrational feeling that something was pursuing him, and moved quickly aside to a tree that he could just barely see a few feet away. He went to the other side of it and huddled down against the trunk.
As he stood there, shivering, he began to hear hoofbeats, slightly muffled by the thick fog. His first impulse was to shout out for help, but a second, stronger instinct warned him to stay put; he would not want to meet up with this rider. The hoofbeats grew steadily louder until they seemed to be right next to him, and then faded off into the fog again. Nick let out a long sigh of relief, and turned around to try to find his way out of the fog and back home. He let out a great shout of surprise. A pair of giant carved wooden doors had loomed up out of the fog in front of him. There were zigzag symbols repeated over and over, in endless variation, on every panel, that you could never fix your eye on, for they seemed to change subtly as you watched. The wood of the doors was like no wood that he had ever seen; it was cracked and pitted and yet polished by age, so that you could scarcely tell that it was wood at all except by a rounding here and there, where someone had not quite been able to avoid leaving the trace of a knothole. If it had not been for signs like this, Nick would have taken the doors to be stone. His eyes slid beyond their outline as he looked, and he saw that all around them, faintly through the mist, was a quivering of things, a movement like the shaking of the air over a fire or over a paved road baked by a summer sun. Yet there was no difference in hear to explain it here. Nick looked closer, and to his surprise, found that these doors were standing on their own, with no house or barn behind them. He stepped back to survey them again, his hand slipping unconsciously into his pocket. Then he jerked it out again, for the circle was now quite warm and nice to the touch, where it had been freezing cold just a little while ago. He pulled it out of his pocket, holding it up to take a look at it, and got another shock. The iron circle had started to glow. He looked at the door before him, and saw that something had changed. The zigzag patterns were shifting again, but this time to form letters, and words, all across the door. Nick read it out loud, unconsciously shifting to a singsong type of voice.
When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back; Three from the circle, three from the track; Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone; Five will return, and one go alone.
As he finished the last line, the circle stopped glowing, and the doors creaked slowly open. He caught another hint of that delicate, lilting, bell- like phrase of music, and it was gone. Nick stepped through the doors, and they shut behind him.