Devon Monk - Cold Copper

“I’m sure sleeping under a stone blanket isn’t all that much fun either.” She reached down and put her hand on the little girl’s hand this time. Soft. Warm. She thought she heard the girl sigh and wondered what sort of dreams she might be having.

“We’ll get you out of here, honey,” she said. “You’ll be home soon.”

The copper wire around her wrist grew warm. Not so hot as to be uncomfortable, but warm enough she looked down at it, almost expecting it to be glowing. But it was just as it was before, dark copper spun into the tight petals of a rosebud, with a stem and latch.

The Madders were doing something, like sending a message down the wire. She could feel a low rumble at the base of her spine, a subtle hum that seemed to grow and roll out from the wire, out through her body, like the deepest thrum of a train in the far distance.

The hum spread until the cave picked it up, vibrating softly.

No, not the cave, the stones.

The Madders had bragged about talking to mountains. They’d said rocks and stones were an amiable sort that didn’t mind giving up their secrets if a man knew how to talk to them. They’d said their people, their blood, were from the old country, where men and stones had often sat down to converse.

And now, here, in this winter country, in the cold heart of a cavern used for a Strange spell to trap living children, the stones sat up and listened to old Madder blood.

Rose held tight to the little girl’s hand. Held tight while the stones rumbled and grumbled. Tiny cracks spread out from where Rose touched the girl, cracks stretching across the girl’s hand, just like the cracks in the jail cell. Stone fell in dusty rivulets away from the little girl, building soft piles of sand around her.

The child coughed, opened her eyes, and whimpered. Then she leaned up into Rose’s arms, clutching her blanket tightly.

“Hush, now, hush,” Rose said, rubbing her back gently. “You’re just fine now. Just fine.”

And then she heard another child cough. Another child wake. In one big rush, the stones released all of the lost children of Des Moines out of their grasp and returned them back to the living world.

The rumbling faded to a chuckle, faded to a soft garbling grumble that gave way to silence. The cave was just a cave again. The mountain had had its say. And the copper wire around Rose’s wrist was no longer warm.

The message from the Madders was sent, received, and answered.

“You’re all going to be all right now,” Rose said to the children, who were waking, rubbing eyes, and looking about. “We’re just a little way from your homes and we’re going to take you back to your parents. Can you all try standing up?”

The children were too dazed to panic, and she hoped they listened to her and trusted her long enough to get them back to town. Whatever it was the Madders had done to talk the stones into freeing the children had cost more than just heating the copper wire. All the pain she’d been feeling was doubled now. And if she were feeling this much pain, the Madders must be in agony.

“I want you all to hold hands,” Rose continued. “Can you do that for me?”

She stood and set the little girl on her feet, then held her hand out for her. The little girl took it. Seeing that, the other children each took the hand of the child next to them.

“Very good,” Rose said. “You’re doing very good. Now, we’re all going to walk out into the daylight. Ready?”

The children just stood there, blank-eyed. She didn’t know what was normal and expected for a child who had just been turned to stone and back, but these children acted as if they were still in a dream.

Or that they were mindless, empty—and as stonelike inside as they had been outside.

A shiver ran down her spine as Rose glanced at all those blank eyes staring at her. They weren’t behaving much like children at all.

She swallowed hard and pushed her unease aside. The children were alive. They were breathing, standing, and they could understand what she was telling them. That would be enough. Maybe if they got out of this cave, farther away from this spell, they would begin to act like children again.

“Here we go,” she said. “This way. Don’t let go of hands.”

Rose walked back up the slope to the cave opening, then ducked and pushed her way out into the daylight, still holding the little girl’s hand.

In the short time she had been in the cave, it had begun snowing rather heavily. She couldn’t see more than a step or two in front of her, but there was no wind behind the snow. There was just snow, a constant, blinding, wet curtain of white closing down on everything.

But with the wire around her wrist, she could find her way back through total darkness.

“I have them,” Rose called. “I have the children.”

The copper wire tugged gently, and she followed the draw of it as the Madders spooled it in.

Alun’s hand appeared out of the snow and caught her wrist. “Are you all right, Rose?”

She nodded. “Fine. I don’t know what you did, how you talked the rocks into letting them go, but it worked. Look.” She pointed back at the line of children who each steadfastly held the next child’s hand and followed behind her like a string of beads.

Alun Madder touched her cheek gently, in a very fatherly sort of gesture. “You are a delight. This couldn’t have happened without you, Rose. Now let’s take these children home.”

They followed the tug of copper as Cadoc Madder gently reeled it in, each step growing a little easier, the pain lifting and fading the closer to town they traveled.

Bryn held up one hand in welcome when they reached his side, and fell into step with them until they reached the road, where brother Cadoc stood on the other side, winding the spool of wire in his hands, solid as a mountain in a storm.

Alun, Bryn, Rose, and all the children crossed the road. As soon as Rose’s boots were firmly on the other side, the pain in her legs, arms, and chest were finally gone.

The snow lightened and then stopped altogether.

“Odd weather,” Cadoc noted.

“Odd town,” Bryn said.

“We’ll let the weather and town be,” Alun said. “We’ve got our hands full with children who need returning.”

“Something’s wrong,” Rose said.

“Plenty’s wrong.” Alun unlatched the copper rose from her wrist. “Strange stealing children and stacking them like cordwood in a cavern under a dust of stone doesn’t make a lick of sense. Mr. Hunt seems incapable of fulfilling a promise we’ve given him days to do, and Vosbrough, well, Vosbrough has been a very naughty man.”

“I mean something’s wrong with the children,” Rose said.

Alun paused, and took a hard look at the children, who had gathered silent and uncomplaining as ghosts around Rose.

None of them were crying. None of them were speaking. None of them were running off toward their homes. They just stood there, staring blankly up at Rose.

“They’re quiet?” Alun asked.

“They’re more than quiet,” she said. “They’re dazed. Almost as if they can’t think for themselves. Like a part of them is still dreaming.”

He knelt and looked at a boy of about six years straight in the face. The boy did not move. Did not even blink.

“Do the stones still have something of them?” Rose asked. “Is the waking part of the children back in that cave somewhere?”

“Bryn?” Alun asked, standing away from the child.

Bryn walked up and dug a jar out of the pouch at his side. He also withdrew a fine horsehair paintbrush. He opened the jar and dipped the brush into it. Red dust clung to the brush tips. “Turn your hands up, son,” Bryn said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”