The Box (part 9)
The dark form of the woman towered over Little Timmy as he stood frozen in the two-dimensional world.
“H-hello?” he stammered. It sounded like words, but transmitted through beeps and boops, like his vocal cords were electronic.
In response, the woman let out another loud groan that hurt Timmy’s papery ears.
“Can you help me? I live in Crumb Hill and I need to get back before dinner.” Timmy didn’t know that in The Dimension, time moves differently. For him, what had been a few minutes was days in his home town.
The woman stepped closer, and suddenly Timmy could see more of her features, still made of countless brown squares. She leaned over him and brought her face close to his. Then, she reached down and picked him up as if he weighed no more than a leaf. She pulled him up to her bosom and began lumbering through the woods with him cradled in her arm like a baby that weighed nothing.
“Where are you taking me?” asked Little Timmy Shugger.
The woman said nothing, but let out occasional wails as she walked along with him in her arm.
Principal Bearhair screamed as he was chewed by the beast. The lantern fell to the ground and flickered as it lay on its side, eventually burning out and falling dark long after the screams had stopped.
Once again, the only sound was the periodic voice of the beast, which sounded like a little kid, calling out into the darkness:
“Hello? Is someone there? Can you help me?”
To get to the home of the Tonic Woman, Mrs. Gurt had to walk through the main street of Crumb Hill. She walked quickly and tried not to make eye contact with anyone as she went, lest she get held up in conversation.
As she went, she rehearsed what she’d say once she got there. She wanted to come off as confident and not nervous — no stuttering once she was face to face with the enigmatic Tonic Woman!
Hello, I’m wondering if you can lend me any advice regarding the black cube in front of the Crumb Hill Elementary School, or the three disappearances of the three people — no, that’s too convoluted…Or the three people who have gone missing?
She muttered this all to herself as she walked.
To get to the woman’s house, she had to get to the far side of town, then follow a dirt walking path another mile through the winding woods that bordered all of Crumb Hill. She made it to the path, and the air immediately got cooler. The wind picked up, creating a sort of howl through the branches of the trees. Mrs. Gurt pulled her coat tighter around her frame and continued on. She would not shiver or stutter before this mythical Tonic Woman.
Yet that’s exactly what she did.
When Mrs. Gurt finally saw the shack in the middle of the woods at the end of the winding dirt road, it had gotten at least five degree cooler, and the sounds of the wind had picked up, though she didn’t feel it blowing at all.
She approached the worn-down little building and knocked on the dilapidated door. It opened immediately, which she was not prepared for.
The woman before her was a head shorter than her and wore all sorts of random things about her body. She had on a black shawl, but attached to it were animal bones, feathers, branches, beaks, and stones. She looked Mrs. Gurt up and down with her one good eye — the other was a solid, pale brown thing, perhaps a stone? Her lips folded in as if they contained only gums.
Mrs. Gurt propelled right into her stuttering opening. “He — Hi. I’m here for. I’m wondering if you know anything about the black cube in the, in the town? By the school? Or the three people who went missing? Can you help us? Er, help me?”
The small woman was silent for a moment, continuing to look Mrs. Gurt up and down. When she spoke, her voice was surprisingly clear and upbeat. “Oh, hello! Well yes, I can tell you whatever you need to know! It will just cost you a ferret and we can peer into the wall hole together.”
“A ferret?” replied Mrs. Gurt, caught off guard.
“Well, yes. I do love ferret. It has the richest natural flavor.”
Thinking quickly, Mrs. Gurt said, “But it’s not the season for ferret right now.”
“Oh, it isn’t?” said the old lady, looking down.
“But,” started Mrs. Gurt, reaching into the bag slung around her shoulder, “I brought you this…” and she pulled out a necklace made of shells from around the shores of Crumb Lake.
“Oh, how lovely!” exclaimed the Tonic Woman. “It’s not as good as a ferret, but it’ll do.” And she accepted the necklace from Mrs. Gurt and brought it promptly up to her mouth, biting off half of the first shell.
“No, it’s not — ” started Mrs. Gurt, but then stopped. The old woman seemed to be enjoying gumming the shells.
“It’s no ferret meat,” she said between crunches, with flakes of shell around her lips and gums, “but it’s not half bad!” She took another bite as she turned to walk inside and waved Mrs. Gurt to follow her with her other hand.
Mrs. Gurt ducked to follow her inside and wondered what in the world was meant by ‘wall hole.’ But she didn’t have to wait long to find out. The Tonic Woman walked to one of the few spaces in her cluttered little shack where the wall was clear. She stood in front of it, took one last bite of a seashell, and let out a little “mmmm” to herself as she chewed, and set it down.
Then, she pulled her little fist back, and punched a hole right into the wall. The horsehair plaster collapsed from one punch from her surprisingly strong arm, leaving a perfectly round little hole.
“There we have it!” she said, turning to Mrs. Gurt with a smirk.
“Oh, a literal wall hole,” she replied, to herself as much as to the Tonic Woman, who was picking up her seashell necklace again for more nibbles.
The small woman then walked up to the hole and put her face into it, muttering some gibberish to herself. She then pulled her face back, saying, “yup, yup. Take a look for yourself.”
Mrs. Gurt walked over to the hole, bent down, and could not believe what she saw when she looked into it.
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Day 67 of 100 Days of Blog
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