Horace Runs

Horace turned and darted out of the house.

Alexander jumped up, snatched his coat, and ran after him, calling, “Horace, wait.” Eben jumped up, too, and ran after Alexander. Isabelle wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and ran after Eben. Julia stepped out the side door to look in the henhouse and the frost-ravaged garden. At the front gate, Mab whinnied, as if she, too, were calling for Horace.

“The pig shed,” cried Isabelle, running that way. Eben set off down the Acton Turnpike, shouting, “Horace, come back.” Alexander took a flying leap over the stone wall into the burial ground to search among the tombstones, calling, “Horace, where are you?”

But inside the house, looking out from the dining room window, James saw Horace tumble over the back fence and scramble into the woods on the path to Quarry Pond. James ran into the kitchen, threw himself against the screen door, and plunged outside.

The troll was at his back. Horace could hear the pounding of its terrible feet. Ducking frantically under a thorny tangle of blackberry canes that tore at his hands and stabbed at his face, he heard the sharp claws of the troll tear them out of its way.

In the distance, Uncle Eben was shouting, “Horace, Horace,” but the shouts died away and the snarling howls of the troll grew louder. Horace ran faster, afraid to look back, then screamed and fell on his knees because something burst up in his face with a rush of wings. But it was only a bird like an enormous chicken. Sobbing, Horace stumbled up and scampered forward, his short legs flying.

There was an opening ahead, a piece of sunset sky and a gleam of water. The water was a pond. Horace knew the pond at once because there had been a picnic there last summer, and his mother had told him not to go near the edge because the water was so deep, and he had stood on the rocky shore with Josh, throwing stones into the water, trying to make them skip the way Josh’s did, once, twice, three times, but Horace’s had all sunk.

Now, Horace took heart because he knew the way, but the troll seemed to know the way, too, because it was thrashing around in the woods, running sideways to head him off. Horace despaired, understanding at once that you couldn’t fool a troll. Turning, he plunged away from the path, with the troll roaring close at his heels, its gigantic feet trampling the forest floor, its terrible claws snapping at branches and twigs. Glancing fearfully back, Horace could see only the dark purple cloud that was obliterating the setting sun. A cold wind had sprung up and all around him the dappled splashes of sunlight were flickering out. Scuttling through underbrush and brambles in a sudden pelting of raindrops, Horace did not know that he was cold, only that he was afraid.

Where could he hide? Zigzagging left and right, he found a hollow place, dropped into it, and burrowed under an umbrella of overarching ferns. They trembled over his head and the rain pattered down, and Horace mistook the drumming of his heart for the pounding feet of the troll. Like a rabbit with a dog at its heels, he jumped out of the hollow and sprinted away.

Had he fooled the troll? No, because you couldn’t fool a troll. It was still clumping along behind him in the pouring rain, smashing and crashing closer, its fiery breath sounding very near. With hot tears running down his cheeks and water streaming from his hair, Horace made a desperate lunge toward a gleam of light that appeared for an instant between the trees. It was only a flickering glimmer, disappearing and flaring up again, but to Horace it was like a candle in the window of a cottage, the cottage of a good witch who helped little boys lost in the forest, and he blundered toward it.

But it was not a cottage. Drawing closer, Horace recognized the new church in the woods, the one Uncle Eben had built with his own hands, where this very morning his grandmother had played the organ and Horace had helped to ring the bell. Now an orange light flared in the steeple, and there were welcoming jingles from the bell.

Horace floundered across the wet ground, stretching out his arms to touch the door, because he would be safe inside. Churches were holy! Too holy for trolls! The friendly door swung open, and Horace stumbled across the sill. Quickly, he slammed the door, but it flapped open again on its hinges, and at once he saw a dark shape silhouetted against the rain.

Wailing, Horace backed away. Didn’t the troll hear the bell jangling in the steeple? Didn’t it know that churches were forbidden to trolls? Desperately, he stared around the shadowy room, looking for a place to hide. The church was only one big chamber without cupboards or closets, but then he remembered the ladder. Yes, there it was in the corner, its rungs matted with hay. The trapdoor in the ceiling was a square of orange light.

A ladder was nothing to Horace. With the wild wind blowing into the church through the open door and the bell tingling overhead and the clawed feet of the troll booming across the new planks of the floor, Horace scampered up the ladder, rung after rung, in a shower of sparks and wisps of falling hay. Poking his head through the trapdoor, he saw a man crouched under the bell with a lighted candle in his hand.

He recognized him at once. It was the preacher—the other preacher, not Mr. Gideon—and he was setting the hay on fire.

Horatio Biddle turned around, colliding again with the infernal bell. Below him, at the top of the ladder, a small boy stood staring up at him. Horatio set the candle down on the smoldering hay and took the boy by the throat.