He stopped playing at their sudden arrival and the three of them looked at each other for a long moment, none of them speaking, none of them moving or so much as even breathing.
This can’t be right, Bess thought. She knew that such a fiddler couldn’t possibly exist, but her head was too clouded and fuzzy to feel alarmed. Beside her, Laurel appeared to be just as spellbound.
It was something in the music, a faraway part of Bess’s mind whispered. That, she was sure, was the source of the spell.
Belatedly, she was also aware that the spot where the two deer trails met might well be considered a crossroads, and there were any number of stories about the sorts of people you met at a crossroads. Like Old Bubba, ready to trade you the gift of music for your soul as he had with Robert Johnson. The fiddler didn’t look like Old Bubba himself, but she wouldn’t be surprised if a body came walking up and told her he was some kind of devil man.
Oh, danger, danger, the little voice in her head whispered, but she couldn’t seem to move, never mind run away.
“So you like music?” the little man said.
As soon as he spoke, Bess found she could breathe again. She didn’t trust her legs to carry her far, but at least she could breathe.
“We love music,” Laurel said.
“And play it, too, by the looks of those cases.”
“We play some.”
“Just exactly what are you?” Bess asked.
“A fiddler, what did you think? Get out your instruments and we’ll play us a tune.”
“I don’t know that we should,” Bess said softly to her sister as they laid their cases on the ground. “There’s something not right here.”
Laurel shrugged. “We’re just seeing that Aunt Lillian didn’t make up all those stories of hers that Janey keeps telling us.”
“I figure we should be feeling a little more scared than I am.”
“What? Of him? He’s not much bigger than a minute.”
“But he’ll be magic. It was magic brought us here.”
Laurel shook her head. “Wasn’t magic brought me—it was music.”
“Same difference,” Bess said.
“I tell you what,” the little man said, either ignoring their whispered conversation or not hearing it. “Why don’t we make us a bargain? If the two of you can play me a tune I’ve never heard before, I’ll grant you one wish, whatever it is you want.”
“And if we can’t?” Laurel asked.
“Then you come away with me,” the little man told them.
“How do we know you can deliver?” Laurel asked.
“What do you lose to find out? A bright pair of girls like you must know a thousand tunes.”
Bess pulled at Laurel’s arm when she realized that Laurel was actually considering the little man’s bet. Her sister had to be more deeply snared by his magic than she was to even think of agreeing to this.
“This is stupid,” she said. “Nobody ever wins this sort of thing.”
“It seems pretty straightforward to me,” Laurel said.
“It is,” the little man said. “But it has to be done here, and it has to be done now.”
“Laurel,” Bess began.
But her sister shook her head. “This is a sure thing. If we can’t play him a tune he doesn’t know, we deserve to be taken away.” She turned to the little man. “You’re on, mister. Get that wish ready.”
She unbuckled the clasps of her fiddle case, lifted the lid, then shot an angry glance at the little man. All that was in her case were stones wrapped in a few T-shirts. Her fiddle was gone.
Bess quickly opened her own case to find that her banjo was gone as well, replaced by similar stones wrapped in T-shirts.
“Forfeit,” the little man said. “Now you come with me.”
“No,” Laurel said. “You cheated. What did you do with our instruments?”
“I did nothing to them.”
“Then lend me yours.”
“Of course.”
He handed over his fiddle but there were so many little vines and twigs and leaves growing out of it that Laurel could barely get a note out of a string by plucking it. Bowing was out of the question.
The little man snatched his instrument back and stowed it away in a bag that was lying on the ground by his feet. He put his bow in after, then tied up the sack and slung it over his shoulder.
“No more dawdling,” he said. “Come along.”
He held out a hand to each of them.
The twins began to back away, but he was quick and far stronger than he looked. He grabbed each by an arm.
“You’re a lying cheat!” Laurel cried.
She aimed a kick at him but it hurt her toe through her running shoe more than it seemed to hurt him.
“I don’t lie and I don’t cheat,” the little man said.
He said something else in a language neither girl could understand. They both grew dizzy, but before they could fall, the little man pulled them away, out of the world they knew and into his own. A moment later, all that remained at the crossroads were two open instrument cases filled with stones.