The Moonlight Boy | Ferry's Tale # 1

The time of the shadows (part two)

Ferry had met Mrs. Cobbs only once, at the Fires of the Hills. The same evening he had found out her story. The old lady was rarely leaving her home. And her niece, Tootsie, who must have been sixty-years-old, was the only one who took care of her. They lived together in the old, gloomy house, so different from the jolly brick houses around.

"Ferry, let's go!" he heard Ben whispering again.

"Why are you whispering?" he asked Ben without taking his eyes away from the house.

"Because they say the old lady is a bit... weird," Matilda answered, also whispering. "Long time ago, when she could walk, she was wandering the Shepherd's Forest, wailing and calling for her long-lost daughter. Shortly after the disappearance of her little girl, her husband also vanished. Some people in town say she murdered him in a rage crisis caused by the disappearance of their only child. And that she hid his body in the basement," Matilda added with a mystery tone in her voice. "Nobody is ever visiting. The old hag is crazy, I'm telling you. We should go! You know what they say about Halloween night, that the spirits of the dead awaken. I wouldn't want to burst in upon her dead husband's ghost," she said, shivering.

But Ferry couldn't budge. He remembered people in town also talked about Lavender Sky as if she was some lunatic. And boy, they were wrong!

He headed towards the house, not minding his friends' plea. He pushed the heavy, rusty gate which opened with a long creak. The garden looked abandoned, invaded by weeds and shrubs with tangled roots coming out of the ground spread like tentacles. A sweet, fruity scent greeted him the moment he stepped into the garden. That was odd because autumn was long gone. No fruit could have resisted that long. A soft tinkling, at every blast, made the whole scene look even creepier.

"Give me your flashlight," he asked Ben, this time whispering. Somehow, his courage faded away.

Ben handed him his pocket flashlight of which he was never apart. He was using it to lighten every dark corner, hoping someday he would meet an alien.

When Ferry turned on the flashlight and put the light on the old trees in the garden, the strangest landscape revealed itself under their eyes. On the empty branches, there were hanging the sweetest temptations a child could ever imagine. Lollypops of all sizes, candy apples, wood spoons with dripping honey. And jars of confiture, jam, marmalade made from all the fruits in the world. None of the jars had lids, and they were hanging on ropes, swinging like in a dance on the music made by their own clinking. The smell was just as inviting. Apples, walnuts, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, pears, even roses, and acacia. And yet, no child dared to jump the rusty fence into the dark garden.

Ferry stepped carefully over the traps of the tangled roots. He didn't want to fall into such a sinister place. Matilda and Ben followed him, also in awe in front of such an eerie, yet alluring landscape.

"What are those things hanging from the trees?" Matilda asked pointing at the sweets no one dared to touch. "Do you think they are for the children who come treat-or-treating?"

"No," said Ferry, "they're traps."

"Traps?!!" the girl wondered. "For what?"

"For fairies. They're sweet fairy traps. But they will never catch a fairy."

"Why not?"

"Because fairies don't have wings," he said without realizing.

"How do you know that?" Matilda asked.

Her question was still floating in the air when Ferry headed towards the door of the gray house.

"Ferry, what do you think you're doing?" Ben whispered.