The Book Of Lost Things

“You are a long way from home, boy,” he said. He raised his right hand and touched his fingers to a stray strand of David’s hair. David shook his head furiously and pushed at the old man. It was like pushing at a wall. The old man might have looked frail, but he was far stronger than David.

“Do you still hear your mother calling?” said the old man. He put his left hand to his ear as though trying to catch the sound of a voice on the air. “Da-vid,” he sang, in a high voice. “Oh, Da-vid.”

“Stop it!” said David. “You stop it now.”

“Or you’ll do what?” said the old man. “A little boy, far, far from home, crying for his dead mother. What can you do?”

“I’ll hurt you,” said David. “I mean it.”

The old man spit on the ground. The grass sizzled where the spittle landed. The liquid expanded, forming a frothy pool upon the ground.

And in the pool David saw his father, and Rose, and the baby Georgie. They were all laughing, even Georgie, who was being tossed high in the air by his father just as David had once been.

“They don’t miss you, you know,” said the old man. “They don’t miss you one little bit. They’re glad that you’re gone. You made your father feel guilty because you reminded him of your mother, but he has a new family now, and with you out of the way he no longer has to worry about you or your feelings. He has forgotten you already, just as he has forgotten your mother.”

The image in the pool changed, and David saw the bedroom his father shared with Rose. Rose and his father were standing beside the bed, kissing each other. Then, as David watched, they lay down together. David looked away. His face was stinging, and he felt a great rage rising up inside. He didn’t want to believe it, and yet the evidence was before him in a pool of steaming spittle ejected from the mouth of a poisonous old man.

“See,” said the old man. “There’s nothing for you to go back to now.”

He laughed, and David struck at him with the sword. He was not even aware that he was doing it. He was just so angry, and so sad. He had never felt so betrayed. Now it was as if control of his body had been taken over by something else, something outside himself, so that he seemed to have no will of his own. His arm rose of its own volition and slashed at the old man, tearing through his brown robe and drawing a bloody line across the skin beneath.

The old man retreated. He put his fingers to the wound on his chest. They came back red. His face began to change. It extended and assumed the shape of a half-moon, the chin curving up so sharply that it almost met the bridge of his crooked nose. Clumps of rough, black hair sprouted from his skull. He cast aside the robe, and David saw a green and gold suit, tied with an ornate gold belt, and a gold dagger that curved like the body of a snake. There was a rip in the fabric of the suit, where David’s sword had cut through the beautiful material. Last of all, a flat black disk appeared in the man’s hand. He flicked with it at the air, and it became a crooked hat, which he placed upon his head.

“You,” said David. “You were in my room.”

The Crooked Man hissed at David, and the dagger at his waist twisted and writhed as though it really were a snake. His face was contorted with fury and pain.

“I have walked through your dreams,” he said. “I know everything that you think, everything that you feel, everything that you fear. I know what a nasty, jealous, hateful child you are. And despite all that, I was still going to help you. I was going to help you find your mother, but then you cut me. Ooooh, you’re a horrid boy. I could make you very sorry, so sorry you’d wish you’d never been born, but-”

The tone of his voice suddenly changed. It became quiet and reasonable, which frightened David even more.

“I won’t, because you’ll have need of me yet. I can take you to the one you seek, and then I can get you both home. I’m the only one who really can. And I’ll just ask for one small thing in return, so small that you won’t even miss it…”

But before he could proceed, he was disturbed by the sound of Roland returning.

The Crooked Man wagged a finger in David’s face. “We’ll talk again, and perhaps you’ll be a little more appreciative when we do!”

The Crooked Man began spinning in a circle, and he spun so fast and so hard that he dug a hole in the earth and disappeared from view, leaving only the brown robe behind. His spittle had dried into the ground, and the images from David’s world could no longer be seen.

David felt Roland arrive beside him, and the two of them peered into the dark hole left by the Crooked Man.

“Who, or what, was that?” asked Roland.

“He disguised himself as the old man,” said David. “He told me that he could help me to get back home, and that he was the only one who could. I think he was the one the Woodsman spoke of. He called him a trickster.”

Roland saw the blood dripping from the blade of David’s sword.

“Did you cut him?”

“I was angry,” said David. “It happened before I could stop myself.”