Merrin let out a triumphant whoop and punched the air. He was free!
Accompanied by the roaring of the river flooding far below at the bottom of the ravine, Merrin traveled quickly down the ravine path. He did not look back even once. Even if he had, he probably would not have noticed the Thing, which blended into the shadows and took on the forms of the rocks in the way that Things do when they do not want to be noticed.
Before long Merrin was leaving the oppressive slate cliffs of the Badlands behind and heading into the scattered hill farms of the Upper Farmlands. This was unfamiliar territory now, but Merrin followed a wide track with a surface of dusty well-trodden earth. When he came to a fork in the road, he was rewarded by a sign-stone. The tall post of granite was carved with an arrow pointing him to the right and one word: CASTLE. Merrin smiled. With a confident stride, he set off along the right-hand fork.
It was a cool spring day and the sun gave off little heat as it slowly rose above the low-lying cloud, but Merrin’s brisk pace kept him warm enough. Soon a familiar empty feeling gathered in the pit of his stomach. Merrin was used to being hungry, but now that he was a free agent he had no intention of letting that state of affairs continue.
As he walked jauntily down the track that meandered through fields of newly planted vines and tiny fruit trees, Merrin saw a small stone farmhouse. It was not far away, half hidden in a dip. He broke into a jog. A few minutes later he was walking into an overgrown yard surrounded by ramshackle sheds, deserted except for a few bedraggled chickens pecking at the dirt. Before him was the long, low farmhouse, the front door half open. Merrin walked up to the door and the smell of baking bread hit him like a sledgehammer.
Merrin’s stomach did something that felt like a double somersault—he had to have that bread. Taking care not to move the front door, which looked like it might have a nasty creak, he crept inside. He found himself in a long, dark room lit only by the glow of a fire from a stove at the far end. Merrin stopped and looked around. No one was there; he was sure of that. The baker of the bread obviously had other things to do, and while he or she was doing them Merrin would seize his chance.
Like a cat, Merrin padded silently across the earthen floor, past a large pile of hay and a stack of wooden boxes.
But—unlike a cat—he stepped on a chicken. With a great squawk the old blind hen rose into the air flapping her wings.
“Shh!” hissed Merrin desperately. “Shh, you stupid bird.” The old hen took no notice and careened off, crashing into a carefully stacked pile of poles ready for bean planting. The poles collapsed with the loudest clatter Merrin had ever heard, and footsteps came running.
A large, motherly looking woman appeared, silhouetted in a doorway across the room. Merrin ducked behind the stack of boxes. “Henny!” cried the woman, running a few feet away from Merrin. She tripped over the hen in the gloom and hurriedly scooped her up. “You silly chook. Come now, time for your breakfast, my sweetheart.”
Time for my
breakfast, you mean, thought Merrin, annoyed that a moth-eaten old hen should get picked up, offered breakfast and called sweetheart, while he skulked hungrily in the shadows. He was pretty sure that if the woman had tripped over him instead of the chicken, the result would not have been the same. He held his breath as the woman walked right past him with the hen. His dark gray eyes followed her progress until she had disappeared out the front door and into the sunlight.
Then, like a streak of black lightning, Merrin shot over to the stove, yanked his sleeves down over his hands, wrenched open the oven door and pulled out a great round loaf of bread.
“A…aah…aaaah!” Merrin gasped under his breath, hopping from foot to foot as the damp heat from the piping-hot bread quickly found its way through his sleeves. Juggling the loaf like a great hot potato, Merrin shot out of the nearest door, ran around the back of the farmhouse and found himself in the yard. His way was barred by a mass of chickens, which were being fed by the woman whose bread Merrin was still juggling. At the sound of the clucking and fussing among her hens, the woman looked up.
“Hey!” she shouted.
Merrin stopped, unsure what to do. Should he turn and run back into the farm, risking an encounter with the woman’s husband or some burly farmhand? Or should he go straight ahead and get out onto the open road?
“That’s my bread,” said the woman, advancing toward him.
Merrin looked down at the loaf as if surprised to see it. Then he made a decision and ran—straight for the chickens.
With much clucking and squawking the chickens scattered. Feathers flew as Merrin plowed through the flock, delivering a few well-aimed kicks as he fled.
In seconds he was out on the road and running fast. He glanced back once and saw the woman standing in the middle of the road shaking her fist at him. He knew he was safe. She was not coming after him.
What Merrin did not see, partly because it was daylight and Things do not show up well in bright light—but mainly because he was not expecting to see it—was the Thing. It flowed along the hedgerows some distance behind him, like a stream of dirty water.
Another thing that Merrin did not see as he jogged along, hugging the now pleasantly hot bread, was a brown rat sitting in the grass by the side of the road. But the rat saw Merrin well enough. Stanley, ex–Message Rat, ex–Secret Service Rat, had no intention of getting anywhere near Merrin, particularly near his right boot. But Stanley’s old Secret Service habits died hard and he was curious to know where Merrin was going. The boy was, in Stanley’s opinion, trouble.
Stanley had just spent a couple of weeks with Humphrey, his old Message Rat Service boss, who had fled the Castle some six months ago after the RatStranglers had formed. Although Humphrey was enjoying his retirement in an apple loft on a small cider farm and had no intention of returning, he had tried to persuade Stanley to start up the Message Rat Service again. Stanley had promised to think about it.
Stanley watched Merrin stop at a crossroads. The boy stared at the sign-stones for a few seconds and then jauntily set off in the direction of the Castle. The rat watched Merrin stride down the road. With people like that heading for the Castle, he thought, a Message Rat Service might well be needed. He made a pact with himself: he would follow Merrin and if the boy did indeed go to the Castle, Stanley would take Humphrey’s advice.
And so it was that two very different creatures followed Merrin as he made his way along the winding tracks that led through the Farmlands. Buoyed by his newfound freedom, Merrin made fast progress, and as night began to fall he saw the Castle in the distance. Weary now, he trudged past the last farm before the river. He looked longingly at the lit candles in the farmhouse windows and at a family sitting down to supper, but he kept going, following the track through a small wood. One sharp bend later Merrin suddenly found himself out of the trees and on the riverbank. Amazed, he threw himself down on the grass and stared. He had never seen anything like it in his life.