The Thief and the Beanstalk (Further Tales Adventures) (8 page)

“What are you?” he asked aloud.

For a long while, Nick just sat and watched them. Was it really possible that these three simple beans could create an awesome ladder to another world?

And where was that other world, that island in the clouds? He looked at the sky. Only a few wisps of clouds were visible; otherwise it was just the daybreak’s gentle gradation of color, from the deep blue of night to the blushing pink that heralded the sun.

Unlike Jack so many years ago, Nick knew what was supposed to happen when the seeds were planted. It would be so easy to just drop them on the ground to let them grow. But at the same time, he was afraid to let it
happen. All the strange events of the last few days had simply swept him along. Choices were presented to him, by Finch and Jack, Each man, in his own way, seemed to look into his soul. Finch saw a little thief who would open the door to Jack’s treasure. Jack saw a little thief who would steal these beans and call forth the beanstalk again.

The beans. They were the reason Nick had come to this remote spot, far away from villages and prying eyes. It was a farm, after all—a place to grow things.

He looked around, clutching the beans in his small fist. The overgrown vegetable field seemed like the right place to plant them, so he hopped over the rock wall. He dropped to his knees and, with his free hand, ripped weeds away to expose a patch of bare soil.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” Nick told himself. He held his breath. Opening his fist, he turned his hand sideways. The beans stuck to his sweaty palm. With the fingers of his other hand, he prodded them loose. One, two, three beans dropped to the ground. Nick watched closely, afraid to breathe. Nothing happened, and at last he exhaled.

“Am I doing this right?” He rearranged the beans into a neat triangle and sat back to watch again. Nothing happened. He began to feel foolish for believing in their power. Maybe the old man was playing a joke on him.

“No, you’re real, all right. I know you are.” He pressed his thumb deep into the soil beside each bean and
pushed them into the holes. Then he scooped a handful of loose dirt and filled each cavity. Brushing the rest of the soil off his hands, he squatted next to the spot to see what would happen. This felt right, but something was missing.

“Water. Bet you need water.” The old stone well was there, but any bucket and rope were long gone, so Nick ran to the stream and scooped up water in his cupped hands. He walked back gingerly, trying not to spill, and poured a little over each hole. It didn’t seem like enough. An old rain barrel at one corner of the house held some stale water, but it was too heavy to carry. Nick wondered if there was a smaller container of some kind in the farmhouse. He trotted toward the dark doorway.

Just before he stepped inside, he saw a metal object glint as it caught a beam of morning light that penetrated the shadowy house. He stumbled back as a figure inside the house stepped forward. It was Finch. His face was the distillation of pure rage, his teeth bared in a snarl, his eyes wild. Nick yelped like a puppy and turned to run. When he spun around, he was looking at Toothless John.

He darted to one side of the vile man. Toothless John reached out and caught hold of the leather pouch around his neck and snapped it back. Nick was yanked off his feet, the strap cutting into his flesh. He fell with a rough thump on his back. Before he could move, Finch was standing over him, reaching down with one strong
hand. In the other hand he held his jagged knife.

Finch’s hand clamped around Nick’s neck and lifted him until his feet dangled a foot from the ground. Nick grabbed Finch’s wrist with both hands to keep himself from being strangled. The rest of the band emerged from the broken-down farmhouse and gathered around. Finch held his blade to Nick’s face, the jagged edge pressed against one cheek. His jaw was clenched so tight, he could barely spit out words.

“Didn’t you know, boy? Didn’t you know what I would do to you?” Then, abruptly, Finch wasn’t looking at Nick anymore. He was looking down at his own legs.

Nick followed Finch’s gaze. Finch’s body, from the waist down, was covered with ants. And not only that, but the ground was swarming with living creatures. A thousand more insects scrambled through the weeds. Dozens of blind black moles emerged from their tunnels and fled. Beetles unhinged their shells and took flight. A rabbit bolted in a blur. Hidden birds exploded from the grass and bushes. Countless worms were writhing out of the earth, as if the soil had been poisoned.

Finch uttered an “Ugh!” of disgust. Throwing Nick aside, he tried to swipe the bugs off with both hands.

Nick was on the ground, gasping for air on his hands and knees. As he caught his breath, he became aware of an odd sensation: Wherever he touched the ground, there was a
tingling
. The feeling grew. It passed through his palms. It flowed past his wrists, almost to his
elbows. Goosebumps erupted all over his body.

Toothless John was screaming and stomping and swatting his face with his hands. A swarm of wasps had flown from their underground hive and were angrily stinging him. The thug ran away howling. The rest of the band scattered in a panic, leaving only Finch and Nick at the farmhouse.

Now the crawling bugs found Nick, and they began to climb his arms and legs to escape the strange tingling. Nick wiped them away and jumped atop a boulder. He looked over and saw that Finch had stopped trying to brush off the ants, even though they were up to his chest, his neck, his face, even climbing in and out of his gaping mouth. He was staring goggle-eyed at something behind Nick.

And then Nick could
hear
what Finch saw. He turned around, not sure he really wanted to know what it was.

The ground there was heaving, and the tingling sensation was joined by a deep rumbling sound that resonated in his chest. A high dome of earth arose where the seeds were sown. It heaved up and down, as if a giant heart beat fitfully at its center. And spreading out in all directions from the center of the mound, it looked like a dozen creatures were burrowing outward, pushing the grass up as they tunneled along.

Finch snapped out of his trance as one of the burrowing things came right at him. He opened his mouth to scream, but Nick couldn’t hear anything above the
rumbling. Then Finch ran off into the woods, faster than Nick had seen any man run.

Another burrowing thing was coming right at Nick. It went directly under the boulder he was on, knocking it right out of the soil and sending Nick tumbling. Nick leaped to his feet. The subterranean thing suddenly broke through the earth and shot ten feet in the air. It towered over Nick’s head, green and glowing like a firefly, as thick as a post, and twisting and coiling like a serpent.

A
snake!
Nick thought. A
giant worm!
But it was neither, he realized. This was no animal; it was the root of a plant—the root of the beanstalk. But no plant ever moved like this. Nick ran to the farmhouse, clumsy with fear, and hid behind the rain barrel at the corner. Behind him, the root paused, reared up, and then suddenly plunged forward again in Nick’s direction, diving back into the earth.

Then it came up again, several feet ahead. It arched up and over and down again, then up and down again, always toward where Nick was hiding. At the edge of Nick’s wide-eyed vision, he saw other roots plunging in and out of the ground, sewing giant green stitches in the earth, and he knew they were searching for something. They were
thirsty
, and the world trembled as their circumference grew.

The root was upon Nick’s hiding place now, paused and hovering over the barrel. Nick watched as the tip of
the root wrinkled and wagged, as if sniffing the air. Then, before his eyes, another wonder: Tendrils sprang from the root, growing in an instant, a foot long, two feet long, a yard long. They whipped around the barrel and lifted it into the air. Now there was no place to hide.

But the root found what it wanted, and it wasn’t Nick. It was the rainwater. The tip dove into the barrel. There was a giant gulp, then a slurping sound as it sucked out the last drops of moisture. The barrel crashed to the ground, dry as toast, as the tendrils uncoiled from it. An egg-shaped lump was sliding down the root, toward the pulsating mound where the seeds were sewn, moving and pausing to the beat, sloshing as it stopped and started. It was water being pumped to the seeds.

In those incredible moments, Nick registered every detail of what was happening around him. A root paused at the top of the well, then slithered inside. Another root nearby, sensing some silent signal, followed it down. The rock walls of the well tumbled apart as the roots doubled in size, then doubled again, guzzling and pumping great gulps of water. Under Nick’s feet, there was a tumbling, grumbling sensation as the roots probed deeper and deeper, pushing dirt and boulders aside and splitting bedrock.

Suddenly the mound gave a giant heave upward. The grass dome burst like a pimple on the earth’s cheek, dirt and pebbles rained everywhere, and there was the beanstalk. No, not one stalk—
three
, rising and twining
together. They shot thirty feet high in an instant, curving at the top like a trio of vipers ready to strike. Then with an unearthly roar, they pointed straight up and grew into the sky, intertwining as they rose. A living rope, thick as the greatest trees, was weaving itself before Nick’s eyes, impossibly fast, impossibly long, impossibly high.

Up. Up. And up it went, gaining speed. A giant root intercepted the stream that ran nearby, dividing at its tip again and again until thousands of tiny squirming wormy fingers drank every drop. Downstream, fish suddenly flopped in the muck.

Up. Up. And up. The high grass along the garden wall, green and lush one minute, dried and frizzled into hay the next.

Up. Up. And up. A row of trees toppled as one.

Up. Up. Up so high, Nick lost his balance and fell as he strained to follow the beanstalk’s path with his eyes.

He lay flat on his back, the easier to watch it go skyward. His body quivered as the earth rumbled underneath it. Nothing could tear his gaze away from the beanstalk.

Until he saw the cloud.

The cloud came from the west, from somewhere over the ocean. It appeared at almost the same instant that the sun emerged over the opposite horizon. The first rays struck the edge of the cloud, gilding it. Beyond that,
all was black and gray. The cloud was gigantic, of unimaginable size and mass, like the greatest storm ever known. As it swept over the land, rapidly approaching the growing beanstalk, it eclipsed the heavens and brought the dark of night back to the world beneath it.

There was a bond between the beanstalk and the cloud. One belonged to the other, of that Nick was sure.

At the foot of the beanstalk, the plant rustled and hissed as hundreds of branches and leaves and tendrils sprouted everywhere, filling the trunk with lush green growth. The quaking of the earth had subsided and the noise had dimmed, but he could still hear the slosh of water being pumped up to sustain the growth at the top.

High above him the beanstalk narrowed to a thread in the sky, then vanished altogether, too far away to see.

The cloud was drawing closer. It had a lazy spin as it approached. But that spinning motion came to a halt and even reversed itself a bit as one part of the cloud—a narrow peninsula that jutted out much farther than the rest—aligned itself with the beanstalk like the point of a compass.

Then the beanstalk lurched skyward, straining at the roots that must have been anchored a hundred feet below ground. It seemed to be trying to stretch itself just a few feet higher, reaching for something to latch onto at the top. At the same time, the cloud itself descended to meet the rising plant.

Nick felt like a fish watching a giant ship moor itself to its anchor line above him. A rumbling noise came down as the prow of the cloud and the plant touched. A shudder ran down the length of the beanstalk, top to bottom, resonating in the earth.

And a matching shiver ran down Nick’s spine.

As Nick stood gawking at the beanstalk, a violent gust of wind swept over the crest of the ridge, down the slope, and across the valley, sending loose stones rolling and spiriting fallen leaves into the sky. This wave of air followed the strange cloud like the wake of a great seagoing vessel. As it washed over him, it made his clothes billow and snap, and he had to lean against the gale to stay on his feet. The leaves of the beanstalk rustled and whistled. Then the howling passed by, and Nick watched as the gust rolled across the rest of the valley and into the hills beyond, its strength ebbing now that the cloud had come to a stop.

Nick was a dozen yards away from the beanstalk. He approached it cautiously. As he took a step, he kicked something with his foot. It was a knife, dropped by one of the fleeing thugs. It was the kind with a blade that folded into its handle. Nick tucked it into his pocket.

Cautiously, he put his hands out and touched the
trunk with both palms. There was that tingling again, though not to the degree that drove the insects out of the ground. It was an invigorating feeling, a power that could somehow be absorbed. To touch it was to feel energized.

He spread his arms wide and hugged the trunk, putting an ear to its surface. It sounded like there was a river surging deep inside.

Nick took another look at the earth beneath his feet, wondering if he would ever touch it again should he leave. He was afraid to begin the climb, but more afraid not to. Finch and his gang of cutthroats were driven off, but would they stay away for long?

Something else helped him overcome his fear: the thrilling, siren call of adventure. Above him, on top of that cloud, was a place where perhaps only one other human being had ever set foot—a magical place, with marvels to be discovered, and maybe treasures to be retrieved.

“Jack did it. So can you,” Nick said to himself.

Nick grabbed one branch and stepped onto another. Then he took a deep breath and started to climb.

He was surprised at how easy it was. Places for his hands and feet were everywhere. He never seemed to tire—in fact he felt stronger the higher he climbed—and he knew there was something unnatural about this endurance. It was the awesome life force that flowed inside the magic beanstalk, radiating through his body and fueling his muscles. His arms grabbed and pulled, his legs climbed and pushed, with endless speed and
agility. Nick felt he could almost fly. Any doubt that he could reach that strange cloud overhead evaporated, like the morning mist that the rising sun was burning away.