Read Online The Stair Of Time (Book 2) by William Woodward - Free Book Online
Authors: William Woodward
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going through the motions of life, hoping that one day the sharp edge of their grief would dull.
Six months later, Erick died, mauled by a pack of wolves while out tending the sheep. Erick crawled home on hands and knees that had been torn to ribbons. Graybeard and Blue had killed three of the wolves trying to save him, but the pack was too large. Too vicious. They never had a chance. They could have gotten away while the wolves were busy with Erick. But they stood their ground, defending him to the end, offering their flesh to the maker so that he might live.
One of the wolves got its head bashed in by Erick’s walking stick, a heavy ironwood staff carved by his father, eagle’s head on top, steel cap on bottom. Erick was born with one leg shorter than the other, and so had walked with a slight limp. Thus, the staff had become a constant companion. The eagle’s feathers were now drenched in wolf’s blood, soaked deep into the grain of the wood, an ugly stain to mark Erick’s passage from this life to the next, marring that which had once been beautiful.
To be sure, he’d been a strapping lad for eleven, and as such had managed to hang on for days after the attack, finally surrendering late one afternoon to the fever that had raged through his body like fire through a dry forest.
He was buried with his staff, dressed in his Sunday finest. It had rained that day. At the time, Eli thought The Watcher was crying for their loss. Now he knew the truth. If there was a god, his benevolence did not extend to people like him.
“If you don’t have the time for me and mine,” he had said a few days after the burial, shaking his fist at the heavens, “then I don’t have time for you! So be it!”
The wolves had never attacked a person before, not this far south anyway. Folks began to discuss what such an attack might portend. Perhaps the Johansen family was cursed . I mean, first the mother and now this. They were to be pitied, The Watcher help them. But from a distance—just in case. After all, one never knew when a curse might choose to latch on to someone else.
People at school, and then even church, began to give Mandie and her father a wide b erth. Almost everyone sent a letter to say how sorry they were, and yet apparently no one was sorry enough to speak to them, much less call on them. They treated the remaining members of the Johansen family as if they had plague, averting their eyes if they happened to pass them on the street, hearts full of fear, pity, and shame.
And now that Mandie had slipped into this trance, or coma, or whatever in the name of whoever it was, muttering incoherencies about people and places that didn’t even exist, Eli had begun to wonder if they weren’t right. Perhaps he and his family were cursed. He was a simple man. What did he know of such things?
Tomorrow, he would call on Sarilla, the witch woman up Hooktooth Hill who, according to her own frequent declarations, was the greatest soothsayer to ever have lived. Normally, he wouldn’t consider such a thing. But these were not normal times, and he was desperate. Mayhap there was a potion or elixir of some sort that could help. At this point, he would try anything. He needn’t go under cover of darkness or in disguise as Marnie, and sometimes Mandie, had done when they had made the trip to procure preparations for stiff joints, bad dreams, and the like.
Come to think of it, he ought to take Mandie with him in the wagon, bundle her up tight in some blankets and pillows. Might as well shout his intentions from the rooftops. It wasn’t like the gossip could get any worse. He’d tried Old Man Waverly, the town doctor, to little or no avail. He might as well try the witch. If they were cursed, as everyone in Fairhaven already believed, a witch woman might be just the thing—a doctor for the flu, a witch for a curse. If it wasn’t a saying, it oughta
Six months later, Erick died, mauled by a pack of wolves while out tending the sheep. Erick crawled home on hands and knees that had been torn to ribbons. Graybeard and Blue had killed three of the wolves trying to save him, but the pack was too large. Too vicious. They never had a chance. They could have gotten away while the wolves were busy with Erick. But they stood their ground, defending him to the end, offering their flesh to the maker so that he might live.
One of the wolves got its head bashed in by Erick’s walking stick, a heavy ironwood staff carved by his father, eagle’s head on top, steel cap on bottom. Erick was born with one leg shorter than the other, and so had walked with a slight limp. Thus, the staff had become a constant companion. The eagle’s feathers were now drenched in wolf’s blood, soaked deep into the grain of the wood, an ugly stain to mark Erick’s passage from this life to the next, marring that which had once been beautiful.
To be sure, he’d been a strapping lad for eleven, and as such had managed to hang on for days after the attack, finally surrendering late one afternoon to the fever that had raged through his body like fire through a dry forest.
He was buried with his staff, dressed in his Sunday finest. It had rained that day. At the time, Eli thought The Watcher was crying for their loss. Now he knew the truth. If there was a god, his benevolence did not extend to people like him.
“If you don’t have the time for me and mine,” he had said a few days after the burial, shaking his fist at the heavens, “then I don’t have time for you! So be it!”
The wolves had never attacked a person before, not this far south anyway. Folks began to discuss what such an attack might portend. Perhaps the Johansen family was cursed . I mean, first the mother and now this. They were to be pitied, The Watcher help them. But from a distance—just in case. After all, one never knew when a curse might choose to latch on to someone else.
People at school, and then even church, began to give Mandie and her father a wide b erth. Almost everyone sent a letter to say how sorry they were, and yet apparently no one was sorry enough to speak to them, much less call on them. They treated the remaining members of the Johansen family as if they had plague, averting their eyes if they happened to pass them on the street, hearts full of fear, pity, and shame.
And now that Mandie had slipped into this trance, or coma, or whatever in the name of whoever it was, muttering incoherencies about people and places that didn’t even exist, Eli had begun to wonder if they weren’t right. Perhaps he and his family were cursed. He was a simple man. What did he know of such things?
Tomorrow, he would call on Sarilla, the witch woman up Hooktooth Hill who, according to her own frequent declarations, was the greatest soothsayer to ever have lived. Normally, he wouldn’t consider such a thing. But these were not normal times, and he was desperate. Mayhap there was a potion or elixir of some sort that could help. At this point, he would try anything. He needn’t go under cover of darkness or in disguise as Marnie, and sometimes Mandie, had done when they had made the trip to procure preparations for stiff joints, bad dreams, and the like.
Come to think of it, he ought to take Mandie with him in the wagon, bundle her up tight in some blankets and pillows. Might as well shout his intentions from the rooftops. It wasn’t like the gossip could get any worse. He’d tried Old Man Waverly, the town doctor, to little or no avail. He might as well try the witch. If they were cursed, as everyone in Fairhaven already believed, a witch woman might be just the thing—a doctor for the flu, a witch for a curse. If it wasn’t a saying, it oughta
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