They ran for their lives. They passed the clock on the tree. It read 6:54, although the time was closer to three-thirty. The man behind them was calling, “Hey! Hey!” They looked back. He was waving. He had on a dark overcoat. Seeing they had slowed, he paced forward. “Hey!” he said.
They stood warily.
They did not move as he came forward. His eyes were still sunken. “I want to apologize. I really do. I recognize you from the train.”
Brian and Gregory stared at him.
The man held out his hand. “I’m Jack Stimple,” he said.
“Uh-huh?” said Gregory.
“I’m sorry about staring,” said Stimple. “I mistook you for someone else.”
“Sure,” said Gregory.
“Okay,” said Gregory.
“I mistook you for someone.”
Brian mustered his courage and said, “No, you didn’t. You…you knew exactly who we were.”
Jack Stimple scowled. “I have trouble telling people apart,” he said. “One face. Another face. It’s all flesh.”
“That’s your story?” said Gregory incredulously. “That’s it? We can work you up something better than that.”
“Gregory!” said Brian.
Jack Stimple rolled his eyes and held out his hands. “Fine! Yes. Of course I didn’t mistake you on the train.”
“Who are you, then?” asked Brian.
“I am here to wish you luck at the outset of the Game.”
“Why?” said Gregory.
“And also, to warn you that the stakes are high. You will have to play hard.” Jack Stimple stared at Brian. Reaching out and touching the knot of the boy’s necktie, he said, “You are clearly the weaker and more timid of the two. So allow me to address this to you in particular.” Brian shrank back from the man’s touch. Stimple said, “You will be in great danger. You will see things that you will wish you had not seen. You will not know where to turn. In particular, do not trust Maximilian Grendle. I suspect, for example, that he has not told you how many people have disappeared in these woods.”
“No,” said Gregory. “How many?”
“I’m not sure of the exact number.”
“Are we talking below five? Multiples of ten?”
“Why don’t I get back to you,” said Jack, somewhat tartly.
“How did they disappear?”
“‘Disappear’ is the wrong word, actually,” said Jack. “Their remains were found.”
“Tell us what’s going on!” said Gregory defiantly. “What’s up with the house? And these clothes? And that clock?” he said, pointing.
“The less you know, the more likely you are to survive,” said Jack.
“We know about the board game,” whispered Brian. “The Game of Sunken Places.”
“You clearly don’t know enough, Brian Thatz, or you would be home where it is safe, collecting stamps.”
Gregory demanded, “Tell us the rules.”
“I am not permitted to tell you anything. I’m just here to welcome you. I’m not responsible for anything that happens now.” He smiled. “Good day.”
He walked on into the wood. They watched him go. He walked down a short rise. There was a sea of dying gold ferns there. He passed into them, holding his hands high above the fronds and spores.
“Let’s go back,” said Brian.
“Scared?”
“A little.”
“Yeah,” said Gregory. They looked around.
Beyond Clock Corner, the path went through the Sea of Ferns and crossed a small bridge that hadn’t appeared on the game board. Neither boy wanted to go any farther. They turned away and began to walk quickly.
They traced their way back past the mushroom ring and through the tunnel of close-knit trees. They passed the Club of Snarth and walked down the Stony Path.
Far ahead of them, they saw Uncle Max striding through the woods back toward the house, wearing a chesterfield coat.
They kept well behind him so he wouldn’t see them.
Clouds were gathering over the mountains as they walked. It looked like, later in the evening, there might be rain.
They looked at the board again, once they got back to the house.
“There’s more on the board,” Brian said. He rubbed his nose. “Tomorrow we have a decision to make.”
“What’s that?”
Brian pointed. “The path splits at the Club of Snarth. We went straight today. If we keep going that way, we go across that bridge we saw—the Troll Bridge. The other way leads us to this Petroglyph Wall.”
Gregory was sprawled on the floor, putting a china doll into kung fu positions. “So what’s the difference?”
“Well, for one thing, right by the Troll Bridge it says, ‘Do NOT MOVE TILL YOU PLAY A RIDDLE CARD.’ ”
“Uh-huh?”
“And then there’s a picture of a troll.”
Gregory scrambled to his knees and took a look.
There, on the bridge, a menacing little cartoon troll stood. In spite of the creature’s round stomach and stick-like limbs, it appeared to possess a certain wiry power. It gripped a bloody two-handed battle-ax in its claws. It had no neck, but did have a gaping mouth filled with teeth like nails that had been banged in badly. A long, pointed, cartoon-like nose protruded between bloodshot eyes. The ears were pointed, too.
Gregory sighed. “There does seem to be a picture of a troll there.”
“Somehow, with everything that’s been going on, I wouldn’t be too surprised if there really was a troll.”
“Really. Troll. Huh.”
Brian traced the other route with his finger. “Or we can go down to the left, follow the Great Cliff, come to this Petroglyph Wall—which it looks like, has some kind of drawings on it—”
“Drawings, we can handle.”
“Then we can go up the Narrow Path to the Chasm of Gelt. Where Gelt the Winnower stands.”
“I’m not…I’m not familiar with Gelt the Winnower.”
“It looks like he’s a…creature of some kind. Wearing a loincloth. His body is pierced with all these cords. The square says, ‘Play Riddle Card or Lose Game.’”
“What do you mean, ‘pierced by cords’?”
“Maybe they’re coming out of him. He looks all scratched up.”
“So,” said Gregory. “We have a decision to make tomorrow. ”
Brian nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Some kind of decision.”
“Or we could separate. We could go take a look at both options and then report.”
“Gregory, this could be dangerous.”
“It’s a game. We’re competing with someone.”
“We don’t have to play if we don’t want to.”
“How do you know?”
Brian was quiet at that. He bit his lip. He said, “I guess the clock is ticking.” He held up the hourglass. The sand was draining very gradually from the upper reservoir. Slowly, inexorably, it was pooling at the bottom.
“Yeah, so much for that,” Gregory said, and turned it over again.
The sand didn’t change course. Grain by grain, it continued to drop upward.
They watched the sand rise like bubbles.
“All right,” said Gregory nervously. “Now let’s go do something else.”
Brian simply nodded.
For the rest of the afternoon and evening, they played pool in the game room by the light of the gas lamps while rain beat in torrents on the house and drooled down the windows. Occasionally they would look out into the darkness, where the rain stained the world charcoal gray. The woods were wide, and moved with the wind.
Brian stared out into the storm. “What do you think our dream could mean?” he asked. “About the mountains being covered with metal?”
“Who knows?” said Gregory. “But if I have it again, I want to be going down the slope slalom in my wheeled outhouse. I want to be belting out The Sound of Music.”
Brian thought he saw a figure break from the woods and come toward the house, but he could not be sure. It was too dark to tell.
Gregory, behind him, quietly moved the cue ball so he would have a better shot at the pocket when Brian turned around.