Hammer 11: Rope

By the time Corvan finally woke up, the sun was directly over the house. His parents never let him sleep this late. Bees buzzed past his window, but the house below him was silent.

“Mom,” he called out, “what’s for lunch?” There was no answer. Had the lizard attacked while he slept? Leaping out of bed, he tugged on his pants, then moved cautiously down the stairs, the hammer held out before him.

The bed in his parents’ room was not made, and the dresser drawers hung askew. His mother never left things like that. Corvan ran to the front door and found the truck was gone. Retreating to the kitchen, he searched for a note. Nothing.

He was about to pick up the phone and ring the Barron’s when Kate called into the house from the back porch. Turning around, Corvan crossed his arms over his bony chest. He hated being seen without a shirt.

Kate shook her head in disgust as she entered the kitchen. “Are you just getting up? Must be nice to sleep in half the day. My mom had me up at six to take her pies out to the station wagon.” She placed her hands on her hips. “And you should get a shirt on.” She nodded to the laundry basket by the back door.

“Have you seen my parents this morning?” Corvan asked, grabbing a T-shirt and pulling it quickly over his head.

“I saw them drive past our place earlier. They were headed out of town.” She looked out the window as he pulled his shirt on. “So, what are you doing today?”

Corvan was relieved that his parents were okay. They must have needed something from the city, maybe a surprise for his birthday.

“I went out to the rock,” Kate said before he could even reply. “What a mess! Our fort’s ruined.”

“Yeah, the storm flattened the fort.”

“What’s with the pile of rocks from the firepit? How did that happen?” Kate asked, looking intently at his face.

“That was me.” Corvan looked out the kitchen widow to escape her steady gaze. “I was . . . making a… monument. Like a small pyramid.”

Kate scowled. “When are you going to start telling people the truth instead of making up silly stories? If you don’t want to say what you were doing just say, ‘Kate, I don’t want to talk about it.’”

Corvan shrugged. “It’s not that I don’t want to tell you. It just that this time I don’t think anyone will believe me, even if I tell the truth. This one sounds crazier than any story I ever made up. I’m not sure I even know what to think about it yet.”

“Try me,” Kate replied as she hopped up on the kitchen table.

His grandfather’s note had said not to trust anyone, but this wasKate. Besides, she’d already seen the stone hammer.

Pulling the hammer from his back pocket, Corvan placed it on the table next to her. “It’s all connected to this.”

Kate stared as if she were seeing the hammer for the first time. Reaching down, she touched the handle with one finger and then pulled her hand back. “You never did tell me where it came from.”

“I thought my grandfather made it for me, but now I’m not sure. Last night, the hammer was stolen.”

Kate hopped off the table. “Billy Fry took it? How did you get it back?”

“No, it wasn’t Bill. It was …”

“Who?”

“Aw, forget it. I get enough mocking from the kids at school.” Snatching up the hammer, he swept around her into the porch, went out the screen door, and slouched on the porch steps.

Kate followed and stood behind him. “You’re talking about that lizard again, aren’t you?”

Corvan checked to see if she was teasing, but her face was serious.

“I’m sorry if I made fun of you about that story,” Kate said, sitting next to him. “It sounded a bit far-fetched, and besides, no one but you has seen it.” She shrugged. “But I guess not seeing something doesn’t mean you should doubt someone who says he has.”

Corvan stared at the rock. He had definitely seen it. His stomach churned at the memory.

“Why would a lizard need a hammer?” Kate asked.

Corvan dropped his gaze to a dandelion near the bottom step.

“Come on,” Kate nudged her shoulder against his. “I said I was sorry.”

Corvan sighed. “All right, I’ll tell you what happened. But if you start to laugh, I’m not telling you anymore.”

“If the story gets funny, it’s not my fault if I laugh,” she teased.

“It’s not that kind of story. Just do me a favor—let me get to the end before you ask questions.”

Kate nodded, and Corvan told her about the lizard taking the hammer and the fight to get it back.

Kate listened intently, but her frown deepened as the story progressed. When he got to the part where the lizard spoke, she interrupted him.

“Wait a minute. I could imagine a wild animal trying to bury your hammer, thinking it was a bone or something, but everyone knows animals don’t talk. That’s just crazy.”

Corvan jumped to his feet. “You’re right. I am crazy. Crazy for thinking I could share this story with someone like you.” He stomped off.

“What do you mean, like me?” Kate hollered after him. “You think you’re better than me?”

Corvan rounded the corner of the house and broke into a run. He should have known she wouldn’t believe him either. Bounding up the steps to the front door, he shut it behind him and peeked out the living-room window. Kate hadn’t followed. Hopefully she’d go home, and he’d have a chance to look through his grandfather’s chest in peace.

Corvan counted to two hundred to make sure Kate wasn’t coming, then went up in his room and unlocked the secret panel. Draping the soft cloth over the footboard of his bed, he began to look at the few items that remained, but his attention kept returning to the green rope. Popping the clips and withdrawing it from its shallow depression, he examined it carefully. One end was squashed flat and wrapped securely around the coils, the small flaps keeping the rope fastened in tight loops. Corvan tugged at the flattened edges, but they wouldn’t budge. He pulled as hard as he could on the free end to get it to unravel but the rope only stretched slightly.

A low whistle escaped his lips. How could something this light be so strong? It wasn’t even woven like a braided rope; it was all one thin strand except that the free end was a thicker, more like a short handle. On the end of the handle was a round button—like an eyeball with a black knobby pupil staring out from the center. Corvan pushed on the dark bump: the flat flaps securing the coils opened, and the loops fell to the ground.

Letting the soft rope play through his hands, he picked up the flat end that had been wrapped around the coils. It was disk shaped, like the head of a cobra. He held it flat in the palm of his left hand, then pressed his thumb against the dark eye on the end of the handle with his other hand to see if it would curl up again.

An intense prickling sensation snapped his left hand tightly closed around the disk. In a panic, Corvan tried to open his fist, but it was as if the disk was suddenly coated in thick glue. He tried harder, and the prickling increased. His fingers began shifting about of their own accord. Dropping the eyeball handle to pry his hand free, it bounced off the open chest and his left hand sprang open. The flat disk spilled to the floor along with the rest of the rope.

Red dots of blood blossomed across the surface of his palm where tiny needles had punctured his skin. Wiping his hand on his pants, Corvan picked up the disk by its rope tail, like a dead mouse, and gently set it on his bed. Retrieving the handle end, he ran a thumb over the black knob. The flat disk came alive and began twitching and burrowing into his blanket. Leaning in close, he watched as a thousand miniscule fingers thrusted in and out from the disk, grasping, and bunching up the cloth. With trembling hands, he flicked the black button again, and they vanished. The disk lay still.

Turning it over, he pressed the button on the handle end. The tiny tentacles leapt out, waving and seeking something to grab and then the rope itself grew thicker; recoiling on itself like an angry snake and slithering around his forearm. Letting out a yelp, Corvan dropped the disk to the floor, where it spread out wide on the wooden planks. The rope thinned out and seemed to flow toward the disk.

He pulled, but the flat disk wouldn’t budge. He tried harder, and the floorboards flexed and creaked. Working the small button, Corvan released the disk from the floor, then tossed it at the wall while activating the tentacles. It stuck fast, and tiny flecks of paint fell as the tiny fingers found the smallest of cracks in the lath and plaster walls.

Corvan pushed the control to one side and watched as the disk crawled in the same direction, like a round centipede scuttling across the wall. He released the sideways pressure, and it froze in place. For some reason, he had expected it to work that way. It seemed to make logical sense. As he experimented with the button end, he discovered he could control not only the direction but also the speed of the disk. The farther over he bent the knob, the faster it moved.

“This is incredible,” he murmured and a grin spread across his face as he directed the flat disk to where the wall met the slope of ceiling. It made the transition smoothly and slipped upwards towards his grandfather’s light fixture. Corvan flopped onto his back as dislodged plaster sprinkled onto the bed around him. He laughed as he sent it to the very peak, running over the four angles surrounding the black metal ring and his light bulb. When his thumb slipped off the controls, the twitching disk fell onto his legs and sent him scrambling back with a startled yelp.

Leaning back against his headboard, his laughter died off as a memory of the rope and his grandfather came clear. He had been allowed to play with this rope when he was very young, and he remembered laughing as his grandfather ran it around the light and then tried to catch him with it on the bed.

Corvan raised his gaze to the bedroom window. Why was he only remembering these things now? Was it because he was coming of age soon? Maybe his grandfather had planted those memories so Corvan would come looking for him? It sounded like something from his science fiction stories but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible.

He picked up the disk. Would it work on something really smooth? Crossing to the window, held it up to the glass, and activated the button. The disk spread out even flatter, like a small lily pad floating on the water. He worked the controls, and it moved across the smooth surface, but at a much slower pace.

A desperate scream from outside pulled his gaze beyond the pane of glass.

Out on the rock, someone was madly swinging a long stick. The person shouted, the stick rose high, and then they vanished behind the central boulder.

Kate was being attacked by the lizard!