Season of Ponies (8 page)

Moving carefully forward, Pamela reached a large area of firm but slimy earth. She could now see that the house was sitting on a small island in the midst of the swamp. There was no sign of life. The house looked completely deserted, dark and quiet.

As Pamela approached the house, she noticed that the ground seemed to be full of tiny holes. It felt rough and uneven to her bare feet. She examined it more carefully and then gasped in terror.

D
AWN WAS NOT FAR
away, and by the pale gray light she was able to make out thousands of footprints deeply pressed into the soggy earth. Waves of fright rushed over Pamela as she realized that the island was entirely covered by the sharp thin footprints of
Pigs!

Too frightened to think, Pamela ran towards the house. She didn’t stop until the heavy door creaked shut behind her. She was in a large room with a few torn and broken pieces of furniture, heavy ragged drapes at the windows, and a damp and musty smell. Ahead was a winding staircase with broken hanging banisters.

Halfway up the stairs she stopped in midstep. From somewhere in the cold dark house came a sweet familiar sound—Ponyboy’s flute! Sadder and slower now, but still the same secret, singing sound. The sound led up the stairs, down a dim hall, up a narrow stairway to a heavy door. The door was locked, but there was a key in the lock. Pamela turned the huge key with difficulty, and the door swung back.

Before her eyes could become accustomed to the dim light, she heard Ponyboy’s startled voice.

“Girl! What are you doing here?”

And then she saw them. In one end of the room was a large iron cage, and in it sat Ponyboy. Solsken lay beside him with his golden head in Ponyboy’s lap.

“I came looking for you,” Pamela whispered. “Why are you in that cage?”

“The Pig Woman,” he said shortly. “She’s turning us into pigs.”

In horror Pamela stared at them, looking for sharp cloven hooves or snout-like noses.

“You—you don’t look at all like pigs to me,” she faltered.

“Oh, we’re not yet. But we soon will be. See that food and water over there? If we eat a bite or take one drink, we’ll become pigs. And if we don’t, we’ll starve. Solsken would have eaten long ago, but I wouldn’t let him.”

“Oh, Ponyboy, what will we do? There must be something we can do.”

“Well, it’s easy to see what you’d better do. You’d better get out of here. The Pig Woman’s out in the forest now, but she never stays long. And if she finds you here when she comes back, there’ll be one more pig.”

Pamela covered her face with both hands in fear and confusion.

What could she do? She was afraid, but she couldn’t leave Ponyboy. And she kept thinking there was something she could do to help, there was something she should remember.

“Girl!” Ponyboy shouted, breaking into her daze. Pamela jumped back in fright. “What’s that in your hand?”

Pamela looked down. She had not even realized that she still clutched the key she had found in the door. And with it were several other keys.

“Keys,” she stammered. “They were in that door.”

“Well, don’t just stand there.” Ponyboy’s impatience was almost frightening. “Try them in the padlock. That one looks just like the one that opens this cage.”

With trembling fingers Pamela slipped the key into the lock, and the rusty padlock squeaked open.

Instantly Pamela was almost jerked off her feet as Ponyboy grabbed her hand and dashed from the room. Down the stairs they flew so fast that Pamela’s mud-stained white gown and her unbraided hair floated behind her and little Solsken could barely keep up. The heavy front door slammed behind them, and they were running across the muddy pig-tracked ground.

They had almost reached the edge of the island when suddenly the air was full of a terrible, beautiful sound. Ponyboy ran slower and slower and then stopped. His eyes had changed again to brown marbles. Solsken, too, seemed frozen to the spot.

At the far end of the island, something was moving in the mist. First dozens and dozens of thin black pigs with sharp white tusks darted forward, their jaws clicking. Then out of the swirling fog came a woman. Long black hair hung around a sharp white face and floated out behind her into the mist. A heavy cloak of dull black feathers fell like two huge wings from her shoulders. She approached slowly, and from her open mouth came the dreadful song:

“Aie-e-e-e, Aie-e-e

Stop and listen to my song,

Listen well and listen long.

Soon its beauty weaves a spell,

Soon you love its tones so well,

Just to hear it you will give

Your greatest gift—your will to live.

Aie-e-e, Aie-e-e”

In vain Pamela tried to pull Ponyboy towards safety, but it was like trying to move a statue. Finally she turned to run herself, but it was too late. All around them was a circle of sharp black snouts, gleaming red eyes and clicking white tusks.

The Pig Woman was closer now, and the air rang with her song. Pamela stared at her with fascinated horror. And then the feeling that she must remember something was back—stronger than ever; she must remember, and quickly!

She covered her eyes and forced herself to think, and suddenly she knew: A story Aunt Elsie had read to her—about ancient times—an evil woman who lured men to their fate by singing and—and ...the rest wouldn’t come. Pamela opened her fingers and looked between them. The Pig Woman was very close now, her strange eyes glowing weirdly in her dead white face.

Pamela closed her eyes again and strained to remember. Someone else sang—that was it! Someone else sang so beautifully that the song of evil was drowned, and its victims escaped.

Without hesitation Pamela began to sing. She didn’t sing an ordinary song like those her father had taught her. This song came from somewhere deeper than memory, and it seemed to sing itself through Pamela’s lips. Without words, as a bird sings of happiness, Pamela sang of freedom and courage and hope, of friendship and laughter and adventure. She sang with all the strength within her.

When Pamela began to sing, the Pig Woman’s face became twisted with anger. She tried to sing louder and louder. As she strained to drown out Pamela’s song, the evil woman’s beautiful voice became hoarse and shrill. Little by little its awful beauty faded until it seemed to be no more than the screeching of an evil bird of prey.

When Pamela felt Ponyboy grab her arm, she knew that she was winning. She felt Solsken push his velvet nose against her hand, but she did not stop singing. She sang until she saw the black pigs, who surrounded them, stop snapping their long tusks and their glowing red eyes changed to dull black. She sang as she and Ponyboy and Solsken began to move slowly backward towards the swamp. When they reached the edge of the circle of pigs, the pigs fell back and let them through.

Seeing this, the Pig Woman clenched her fists and her song became an ear-splitting screech of rage. But when she saw her pigs following after Pamela quietly like a pack of well-trained dogs, she stopped singing altogether.

She jumped up and down and pulled her long hair in fury, screaming, “Come back! Come back! You can’t leave! You can never leave!” But the pigs did not stop. As if they heard nothing but the angry cawing of a crow, they continued to follow slowly and tamely after the children.

Suddenly the Pig Woman flung her clawlike hands above her head, gave a violent scream and, running to the edge of the island, jumped far out over the deep black water. For a moment her cloak of feathers spread out behind her and she looked like a huge black bird in flight. Then she disappeared beneath the slimy surface.

Pamela and Ponyboy watched in horror. The dark water swirled. Bubbles foamed upward and then stopped. Finally all was still.

For a long minute the boy and girl stared at each other in horrified silence. Both of Pamela’s hands were pressed to her mouth holding back a scream, and even Ponyboy’s face was pale.

But soon Ponyboy was himself again. “Cheer up,” he grinned, giving Pamela a shake. “I don’t think we’ll miss her a bit.”

O
N THE WAY BACK
across the swamp Pamela couldn’t help asking some questions even though she knew how Ponyboy felt about them.

“Why didn’t the Pig Woman’s song enchant me?” she asked.

Ponyboy shrugged. “Because you’re just a girl,” he said. “It didn’t work on girl things.”

“What will my aunts say?” Pamela asked later. “I’ve been gone a long time.”

“Oh, we’ll make it look as if you’ve been lost in the woods,” he said. “It’ll be all right.”

But Pamela’s last questions Ponyboy couldn’t answer. “What,” she said, “are we going to do with all those pigs?”

They were all following, quietly and tamely, dozens and dozens of thin black pigs with sad pleading eyes.

“Do you suppose all those pigs were boys once?”

“Maybe some of them,” Ponyboy answered. “But some were probably animals. The Pig Woman’s song worked on animals, too. Some of them might even be girls. Her song didn’t work on girl things, but she might have caught them some other way.”

“Oh, the poor things,” Pamela cried. “Won’t they ever change back?”

“I don’t know,” Ponyboy answered. “But they can’t follow
me
around forever. The ponies wouldn’t like it.”

Pamela was so tired that they had to rest many times on their way across the swamp, so it was almost evening again before they reached the other side where the pony herd was waiting.

The ponies crowded around them wild with joy. They pushed and shoved as each tried to get closest to the children. But when they saw the pigs, they snorted and shied. Ponyboy had to lead them away before he was able to calm them.

When they reached the meadow, they all stopped to drink from the spring and eat some food. By then Pamela was so tired and sleepy she could hardly move.

“You might as well sleep a little while,” Ponyboy said. “You’re so late now, a few more hours won’t matter.”

So they lay down in the soft warm grass, each with a pony for a pillow, and fell fast asleep. All around the meadow the poor ugly pigs lay down and slept, too.

Pamela awakened first. She sat up and stretched and rubbed her eyes. Then she stared in shocked surprise. The ugly black pigs were gone, and all around the clearing were sleeping animals and boys, lovely spotted fawns, wooly bear cubs, lambs and colts, and perhaps a dozen real live boys.

Just then Ponyboy woke up, too. When he saw the boys and animals, he grinned and motioned for Pamela to be quiet. Silently they roused the ponies and rode away from the clearing.

When they were well into the forest, Pamela asked, “Why didn’t you want to wake them?”

“There you go again, asking questions.” Ponyboy grinned. “They won’t have any trouble finding their way back to where they came from now. They don’t need us any more, and besides—they might ask questions. And you know how I feel about that!”

As they drew nearer and nearer to Oak Farm, Pamela became more and more worried. She was quite sure that Aunt Sarah would never accept so simple an explanation of where she had been as the one Ponyboy suggested. After all, she couldn’t get lost in the forest for a whole day and part of a night (and in her nightdress, too) and expect people not to ask how and why.

Pamela felt odd as the pony herd crowded around her to say good-by in the little grove behind the barn.

She supposed it was because she was so tired.

Ponyboy was having trouble holding Cirro, who seemed unusually nervous. “Good-by, Girl,” he said hastily. “We’ve got to get out of here. Some of them must be out of the house.” Then as Cirro danced sideways toward the safety of the woods, calling to the mares softly through quivering nostrils, Ponyboy called, “Thanks, Girl. Thanks for all of us! And don’t forget—” Cirro reared and whirled away. But the words drifted back. “Don’t—forget—your—song.”

The mares followed reluctantly, looking back at Pamela with velvet eyes. Last to leave was Nimbus. She touched Pamela’s cheek with her soft gray nose as she had done so often before. Then she turned away. At the edge of the woods she turned once more, though the rest of the herd had disappeared. She nickered softly, tossing her fine head and pawing the earth with one forefoot, as though begging Pamela to come, too. Then Cirro called again, and Nimbus bounded away into the shadows.

While she was still waving, Pamela noticed that her face felt very hot and her head seemed strangely heavy. She had felt that way only once or twice before. It had been—yes, it had been when she was sick. She was just thinking that if she got really sick, Aunt Sarah wouldn’t ask so many questions, when she began to feel so bad she forgot all about Aunt Sarah.

The walk through the barn and across the farmyard was a painful haze. Afterwards Pamela could only remember farm buildings spinning past crazily and her feet becoming heavier and heavier. She seemed to hear Aunt Elsie’s voice calling her from somewhere far away, but she saw no one as she slowly and carefully climbed the backstairs. The upstairs hall seemed a mile long and the door of her room seemed to keep moving away from her.

The last thing she remembered was crawling gratefully onto her bed. She caught a glimpse of her bare feet and the hem of her nightdress still stained with mud from the swamp. “Oh dear,” she thought wearily, “I’ll have to clean up before I go to sleep.”

Then for a long, long time she had no thoughts at all.

M
UCH LATER THERE BEGAN
to be something to remember again. She seemed to be floating just below the surface of something. Something dark and deep and endless. She remembered trying to reach the top where there were lights and movement and voices. If she could just get to the surface and stay there for a moment, she could find out—but then, just as it seemed close and the light was growing stronger, she would begin to sink again, with only a glimpse of something to hold onto as she sank down again into the deep, deep darkness.

Once it was a glimpse of Aunt Elsie’s worried face, another time it seemed to be her father’s. Again it was only sunlight on the faded wallpaper of her room, and once it was a strange man who leaned over her with something in his ears. “A doctor,” she thought drowsily just before she sank back again into the dark depths of unconsciousness.