171) The Salvation of Eden, Chapter 7 -- Old Man McKiller

Surprisingly, to Kohra anyway, it all turned out exactly as Dom had predicted. They hiked for two days through light forest, skirting the town-side of the swamp, and sure enough, they came upon a little bell, hanging from an oak tree branch beside a large patch of bullrushes on one side and a stand of birch on the other. “I’d recognize this place anywhere,” Dominic said happily. Then he paused, wondering if that actually made any sense.

         “I thought there was a lake,” Kohra asked, puzzled.

         He laughed. “Oh, this isn’t where he lives. I have no idea how to get there. This is just where you call him.”

         “Call him?”

         He pointed to the bell. “So the story goes, this is the only way to find his house.”

         “What? How? That makes no sense!”

         Dominic shrugged. “I don’t know. Ms. B’s friend, remember?”

         She nodded. “Yeah, that does sort of make sense, I guess. I mean, it doesn’t, but it makes sense that one of Ms. B’s friends wouldn’t make sense.”

         He handed her a little wooden hammer, motioning toward the bell.

         “What do I do? Just hit it?”

         “Yeah, just once. Give it a real good ding.”

         She smirked. “Those are your instructions? Give it a real good ding?”

         “Look, do you want to do it, or what?”

         She aimed the hammer and “gave it a real good ding.”

         It was a deeper sound than she’d expected from such a small bell, warm and rich, like liquid honey and soft leather gloves. Unfortunately, the viscous, reassuring BONGGGG didn’t seem to penetrate very far into the dankness of the surrounding trees and moss.

         Suddenly, a path stretched out in front of Kohra, a narrow, barely perceptible footpath that she, somehow, hadn’t noticed before.        

         “Dom,” she whispered, pointing. He already saw it, of course.

         She questioned with her eyes. He shrugged, then motioned like “Here we go?” She nodded, and they stepped down the path, Dominic first.

         Three steps later, they were standing in a clearing…somehow.  Kohra didn’t even have time to take the impossibility of that in, because standing right in front of her, but completely ignoring them as though they didn’t exist, stood a hunched-over old man that could only have been Old Man McKiller himself.  He was bent over at the waist, his face quite close to the ground like he was studying it intently. 

         There was no mistaking him; he looked exactly as the rumours described (which was a bit worrying, Kohra realized, given the other parts of those rumours).  Wild, bright eyes that looked a tad unhinged, like maybe he had some lycanthrope blood in him.  His clothes were clearly self-made, random patches of cloth sewn together into a tunic-like outfit that looked surprisingly comfortable, albeit very colourful.  Firmly gripped in one outstretched hand, his gnarled, awesome walking stick seemed rooted in the earth itself.

         A moment or two later, he straightened and looked right at them, but registered nothing on his face as though they were invisible and he didn’t even know they were there. His rutted, leathery face was as furrowed as his eyes were twinkly.  Kohra immediately thought of Gandalf from the old stories.   

         Then his eyes shifted to the right, and Kohra had a feeling that it was on purpose. He turned, slowly shuffling in that direction, and silently, they followed. As he walked, he seemed completely concentrated on pinching leaves off of tall, spikey plants that grew sporadically along the path they were following. He was talking softly to them, but aside from it being a remarkably musical language, Kohra had no idea what he was saying.

         This continued for a while, him shuffling slowly, picking plants, quietly murmuring to them.  And completely ignoring Kohra and Dominic.

         He sang to himself the entire time they walked, a pleasing lilt; even without understanding any words, Kohra felt like he was telling a story. She thought of wind-swept hills, ocean spray, and haunted castles. It felt strangely familiar, like a song that was somehow lodged in the deep recesses of the collective unconscious, the rhythms and melodies laid down in some complex and unknowable way in her very tissues.

         As she was thinking about all this, McKiller turned to her. “Shhhhh!!” he admonished sharply.  Putting a finger pointedly to his lips, he then spun around and started walking again.  And singing, just as audibly as before.

         Dominic and Kohra looked at each other, trying not to laugh. They were being almost completely silent, whereas the Old Man was singing away like he hadn’t a care in the world.

         Nevertheless, they walked forward even more quietly, watching out for sticks, or loose rocks, or any potential hazard that could make noise in any way. They were dead quiet.

Kohra had the momentary thought that maybe it wasn’t her walking, but her thinking that was too noisy. Was that even possible?

* * * * *

         Forest turned to swamp, and he led them straight into it without pause. Kohra groaned. She hated swamps — disgusting places, all slime and snakes and muck-holes. Swamps are the kinds of places you NEVER GO.

         She concentrated on stepping exactly where McKiller stepped. Exactly.

         After a few minutes, she heard whinnies.

         Whinnies? She looked up. Horses! Seven beautiful, magnificent horses stood in a large paddock, smack in the middle of the swamp. She blinked in disbelief. Maybe this is what it feels like to hallucinate.

         But, they were real. They lived right here, apparently. She realized the ground underfoot was harder in the paddock, an island of solidity in the squishy muck.

         “You can talk here.” The old man’s voice was gruff and curt, but held a note of warmth, as though he found everything amusing and fundamentally agreeable. He caught Kohra’s eye. “And yes, it was your thoughts. There’s far more to a walk in the woods than what you can hear in an old man’s song.” 

         He turned away before she could respond, chuckling as the horses trotted over, nuzzling him affectionately.

         “You’ll want to keep Arrowhead away,” he said to Dominic. “They’re not overly fond of creatures of that particular species, let’s just say.”

         “You mean they don’t like sn—” Kohra began, but he cut her off with a shout.

         “DON’T SAY THE WORD!!” Then, in a lower voice, “Yes, they don’t like S – N – A – K – E – S. They understand language better than you think, although I’m pretty sure they can’t spell. Not yet anyway.”

         Dominic bent down, letting Arrowhead slither onto the ground. The snake turned, tongue flicking out as though it was talking to him.

         “Arrow — stay away from the horses, okay? Go do some hunting!” The snake seemed to look at him a few moments longer, tongue flicking. Then it slithered into the swamp. Kohra watched it go, secretly hoping it didn’t come back.

         She did feel guilty, harbouring such negative feelings towards Dominic’s Guardian. She knew it was a really big deal to him. But couldn’t he have chosen something a little…nicer? At least something furry?

         McKiller lifted the latch on the sturdy wooden gate and entered the paddock, holding the door open for them to follow. All seven horses came over at once to sniff them. Their hairy noses tickled. Kohra giggled, petting each one, rubbing their necks especially. She loved the soft, warm smoothness of horses’ necks. There was nothing else like it.

         Dominic looked stiff, standing very still as the horses nuzzled him as though he was expecting them to take a bite and see what he tasted like.

         “Good thing paddocks have doors, eh Dom?” Kohra said impishly. She still know what Dominic had against horses.

         “Shut up Kohra….”

         “But, I was just thinking —”

         “Kohra!” His voice was shrill as he backed away from a horse’s playful nudge. It was like they knew he was nervous and were enjoying teasing him a little, too.

         Exiting the paddock through a gate on the opposite side, they followed the old man down a short laneway toward a little stone hut, nestled into the overhanging branches of several large willow trees. It was almost too cute and cozy to be real, right down to the stone chimney and rock-lined flowerbeds in the front yard. Kohra took it all in, half-shocked, half-wondering if the hut was made out of candy and McKiller was going to shove them into a woodstove.

         “I thought this was on a lake?” Kohra asked, genuinely confused, looking around at the endless bog that stretched in all directions from their little island of almost-normalcy.

         McKlein replied airily, “Oh, I’ve done some landscaping.” He turned away and entered the hut before Kohra could process just how thoroughly that didn’t make sense.

         She looked to Dominic for…anything, but he just shrugged, and followed McKlein inside.

         To say the hut was sparsely furnished would be an understatement. There were a few rocks on the floor, half a dozen pillows, and a low writing table with a single notebook. A few rolled-up reed mats stood on their ends against the wall in one corner. A shelf above the mats held some wooden bowls and a few wooden spoons. The rest of the walls were covered from top to bottom with hand-drawn sketches, mostly of plants. But several were of a strikingly beautiful young woman; she looked like an Elf, but not of Kohra’s people. Her features were much sharper and her skin, in the few that were coloured, was decidedly purple, not at all like Kohra’s light mahogany. In fact, she had the same hue as Lenny!

         In the opposite corner, a small stack of firewood sat piled beside a cast iron stove, upon which four large pots bubbled, steam escaping in small spurts from their lids. It smelled delicious, wild nuts and roots and herbs.

         He bowed and swept his hand around the nearly empty room. “Welcome, friends, to my dwelling. It is now yours as well.”

         After standing awkwardly for several long seconds, Kohra walked over to the stove. He watched her closely. She remembered stories of explorers who discovered lands where the animals had never before experienced people. The animals looked at the explorers exactly the way the old man was looking at her. At least, that’s what she imagined.

         She reached for one of the lids. “May I?”

         “Yes, yes!! SMELL!!” He inhaled the scent deeply as steam billowed out of the pot. For that moment, he reminded her of Ms. B.

         Weird.

         She inhaled exuberantly, delighted by the earthy herbs, like her mom’s bread stuffing. “Delicious!”

         He smiled.

         “Why four pots? That’s a lot of soup!” She laughed, feeling self-conscious.

         “Because I don’t want to make just one potion at a time. I’d be cooking all year!” His eyes were strangely soft with endearment, like she was his favorite niece.

         “These are potions?” She curled her upper lip and scrunched her nose. “I thought we were going to eat that!”

         He laughed, full-throated, holding his skinny belly with both hands and throwing his head back. For a good twenty seconds, he laughed like that, eyes closed. Dominic started giggling beside her as it continued, until Kohra found herself laughing too. It was just too ridiculous.

         Finally, he stopped, wiping his teary eyes with his sleeve, still chuckling.

         “I don’t get a lot of company out here. I mean, people company.” He frowned, looking wistful for a moment, then added, “There’s so much talking in this world; I always forget that.” He paused, as if he was about to say something else, but then turned back to the stove, lifting the lid on another of the pots, and inhaling deeply. Kohra’s throat seared, her eyes watering as a spicy, acrid smell scoured the cabin like volcanic gases mixed with hot sauce.

         “This is the broth stage; they won’t be potions for a few more days. Meantime, soup!” He pointed to the volcanic-hot-sauce pot. “Maybe not that one.”

         He smiled at her like an old friend, oblivious to how weird he was. She found herself grinning back. “And, if you turn purple, don’t worry, it goes away after a day.  Or two.” He cackled — definitely a cackle — as he turned back to stir the pots, chanting some strange incantation over each one.

         She caught Dominic’s eye, silently pleading for him to DO something.

         Dominic smirked at her. “Well, it smells delicious!” He picked a pottery bowl from McKlein’s little collection, and held it out.  McKlein handed him a ladle, motioning toward the pots approvingly.

         “Make sure you get those brown chunks,” he nodded at one of the pots.

         Dominic looked uncertain.

         “Meat!” McKlein assured him, then coughed “mostly” under his breath.

         “Any particular kind of meat?” Kohra asked, not wanting to be rude, but….

         He looked very serious, holding her gaze with an almost fiery intensity.  It made her feel both very safe and kind of terrified.  “Very delicious kinds of meat, Kohra.  Very. Delicious.”

         A pause.

         Then Kohra burst out laughing, feeling like she might be going rapidly insane. “Oh, delicious kinds! My favourite!” She had to pause talking for a moment while she chortled, half-choking. Finally, still holding out her bowl, trying to wipe tears from her eyes with the back of one hand, she managed, “All right, load me up!”

         She sat down on the floor, which seemed to be the sensible thing to do, and lifted a spoon to her mouth. 

         Mmmmm. The flavours popped. Shivers of pleasure ran down her spine. This was like no meal she had ever eaten. Wild spices heated up her tongue, deeply pungent mushroom earthiness and just, Mmmmmm.It was reminiscent of Ms. B’s, but…more. 

* * * * *

         He left before they woke up the next morning.  Kohra’s first moments of awareness suggested that she was stretched out on the softest bed, with the softest blanket, and felt as comfortable as ever in her life. Yawning, stretching, she opened her eyes.  She was sleeping on the bare wood floor, although she did have a soft, thin cotton blanket.  Sitting up, she looked around.  Her pillow looked like a rock.  She poked it with her finger.  It was a rock. 

         She was learning to accept that with McKiller, the normal laws of reality didn’t seem to apply.

         That’s when she realized what he’d been doing all along.

         Secrecy magic!  That’s why he was ignoring us! Shuffling along like that; it’s probably how he forages through this area all the time.  By acting perfectly normal, he would be “masking” our presence in the Flux.

         I wonder how he focuses it? …  Singing!  Of course!  That’s why he was singing!  It must be how he Shapes. 

         Dominic was still asleep, surprisingly, also on the bare floor, with his head on a smooth, somewhat indented rock.

         She looked around more carefully for a note or some instructions, finally spotting a little square of paper right beside her rock/pillow.  It was a little heart, drawn poorly as though by a 4 year-old, with “Eat soup!” printed in tiny letters inside. That was all he left.