Blunderbore Comes to Kibworth's Market

Tomorrow is market day in Kibworth. Hudde Cook said he was taking five Kibworth crosses to the market.

“Jack, I thought we sold all that goose’s eggs years ago. Imagine how surprised I was when I found five crosses,” said Hudde, twisting his head on his now crooked shoulders to look up at me.

I laughed and patted my friend on the shoulder. That’s what we did with the golden eggs. No one around here could afford a whole golden egg. After we turned them into golden crosses, we could sell every egg that goose could lay. Hudde, Jack Pawley, and James Church sold the crosses. Wilky, the blacksmith, made the crosses for us.

That’s how we all got rich, very slowly and very cautiously. We didn’t raise suspicions as we slowly raised our status. Hudde and I are the only two of the original group still alive. Apart from my late mother, I was the only one who saw Blunderbore fall.

Just recently it seemed to me that Blunderbore should be buried even after all these years. The day he fell from the sky was a day like no other. But I should have buried him long ago.

I buried Blunderbore’s cracked and broken bones just a week ago. His remains had rested in the forest all these years untouched, right where he landed when he fell from the sky. Blunderbore has been on my mind all week. I shouldn’t have waited so many years to bury him. I’m not sure what I was thinking. I was just a boy when it happened, and I was very scared. Oh well, it’s done now.

As I collected Blunderbore's bones, I found some of his treasures – precious stones, a giant’s ring, and a human hand. Our priest buried the hand. I buried Blunderbore with his stones and ring but took with me three long keys, some oddly shaped nuts, and a neatly folded piece of parchment written in some odd language that he had tucked away in his purse. I showed the parchment to Father William, but he couldn’t read it. He thought he could make out a word here and there, but he wasn’t sure at all. I will find someone who can read it, but now it is time for bed.

…

The morning sky was oddly pale for a summer’s day. Joan had risen before me. I found her and Agnes downstairs in the kitchen. Agnes dished out a bowl of porridge for me and topped it with some berries from the garden. I was anxious to visit the market, so I ate the porridge hurriedly. I was excited to see one of our little Kibworth crosses again after so many years.

I left the manor and began the short walk to Kibworth. The air was calm and still along the road. Clenche decided to come with me. He plod along quietly, his tail wagging slowly.

The market is usually laid out in the center of town, and on the busiest days stretches from end to end across the town. I could hear the low hum of voices as I approached. The stalls at the market's edge offered some intriguing wares for trade, but I really wanted to find Hudde’s stall first.

As I walked around the corner where the road opens into the town square, I could see the square filled with the stalls and stands with folks selling all kinds of things. Light trails of smoke wafted upwards from the small fires the traders had lit. It seemed like a typical market day.

Then I spotted him. My heart raced. I could taste blood rushing upwards at the back of my throat.  

Standing off in the distance, looking vaguely at some apples stood Blunderbore. He was more than twice as tall as anyone else in the market. His eyes had no expression. None. Indeed, they didn’t look as if they were really focused on anything. His neck and shoulders bent oddly. I suppose when he fell from the beanstalk, he might have landed on his neck first. But the bones I buried were broken in so many ways that it would be impossible to tell what hit the ground first.

Strangely, no one in the village seemed to notice the crooked giant visiting their market. People went about their business as usual. I know sweet summer days put folks at ease, but their reactions made no sense. There was a giant in their town and no one noticed him or cared.

Blunderbore next picked up a small skein of blue yard and held it to the sun. He bent at the waist to look down and gave the barest of smiles to the old woman running the stand. Just the corners of his mouth curled upward, and he said not a word.

My eye caught his traveling companion who in my shock, I had not earlier noticed. The companion was just the opposite of Blunderbore. He was extremely short, less than half the height of anyone in our village, but he was very loud with a voice that sounded like a blister.

“He’ll take that one. Yes. How much?” asked his little traveling companion.

Mrs. Wilkerson answered him in a voice too faint to hear.

“Are you kidding! We’ll give you half of that and no more!” bellowed the companion, his short red hair shimmering in the sun as his head bobbed to the rhythm of his declaration.

Mrs. Wilkerson nodded her head, said nothing, and held out her hand for his coins.

When I saw Blunderbore, I stopped completely. Clenche had stopped with me just a pace ahead. But even Clenche didn’t seem troubled. Normally, I would have expected at least a fierce growl.

I began walking again but slowly, trying to think of what to say to Blunderbore, the giant I killed so many years ago – or thought I had killed him until this morning. Whose bones did I bury a fortnight ago if it wasn’t Blunderbore? Should I … should I … run away?

I had almost thought of something to say when I realized that Blunderbore and his companion now stood right in front of me.

Blunderbore stopped and cocked his twisted neck down to look at me. He said nothing. His vacant eyes looked in my direction but did not exactly fall on me.

“You live here?” asked his companion, adding “It figures!” before I even realized he was talking to me.

“You’ve grown up a bit, haven’t you, J-a-c-k!?” asked the companion, his voice pronouncing my name like a curse.

Everyone in town continued going about their business. No one noticed the the giant and his little companion confronting their friend and neighbor of so many decades.

“Who ya gonna kill today, big man?!” demanded the companion, putting his tiny fists into his sides and bending forward slightly.

I started to speak but nothing came out.

“Ashamed, are you? Assassin!” said the companion.

“I didn’t kill him,” I answered weakly. Clenche still continued to take no notice and almost seemed to be lying down.

“Is that what you tell people, J-a-c-k?”

“But he fell from the beanstalk.”

“While trying to get his goose back … his goose, Jack … not your goose!”

At this Blunderbore rotated his torso again, while twisting his neck so that he still looked at me. His vacant eyes blinked. His face bore no expression whatsoever.

“He could have just asked me to leave. He was trying to kill me!”

“That’s what people do when they find a thief, Jack.”

“But I was just a boy.”

“And you think burying him after so many years makes any difference? Well, it doesn’t!”

“I’m sorry I waited so long. That was wrong.”

“Oh. Jack admits a mistake. Let’s see … murder … okay. Not burying the victim … bad,” said the companion, swinging his fingers like hatchets articulating every word.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“Oh. You don’t remember killing me, either!? That’s great, Jack. Just great. I know I’m little, but I would have thought the man who killed me would at least remember me. But then again, it is Jack!”

“But I don’t.”

Clenche walked towards the companion. His tail wagging curiously; his head held up, as his nose sniffed the air around the companion.

The companion reached into a small pocket sewn onto the side of his vest. He pulled out a red powder and flung it as Clenche. The instant the powder touched his nose, Clenche fell over. Dead.

“Now you have something to remember me by, Jack.”

“But I don’t know who you are! I know Blunderbore, and I’m sorry about everything. But I didn’t kill him.”

“Are you so old that your memory has gone? Do you tell the same story over and over again, big man? Your great adventure, fighting the giant! How many times have you repeated a lie, Jack?”

No one in the village still noticed or paid any attention to the scene transpiring in their town square. No one but me noticed that Clenche was dead, blood streaming from his nose.

Blunderbore saw Hudde’s small stall with the Kibworth crosses. He turned and moved his twisted frame to the stall, sniffing loudly as he went. Blunderbore could smell that the gold in the crosses came from the goose’s eggs. He snatched all the crosses with one swoop of his giant arm. He looked at them and laughed quietly.

Hudde demanded that he return the crosses, seemingly unaware that he was confronting a giant. Hudde was not the least bit scared of Blunderbore. I had never thought of Hudde as being particularly brave, but he was treating the twisted giant like a naughty child.

Blunderbore ignored Hudde completely and played with the crosses on their slender chains. He held them to his nose and smelt deeply of the goose gold. His eyes seemed to have focus now, and his lips curled into that odd smile again.

Hudde grabbed a hammer from his stall and walked toward Blunderbore, telling him that he had but one chance to return the crosses.

Blunderbore ignored him completely.

As Hudde raised his hammer to strike, Blunderbore grabbed Hudde with his free hand, pulled him inward, and then flung him up high and away with shocking ease. Hudde’s body hit the wall on the second floor of the Johnson’s house, then slid straight down … landing with a thud. His body was quiet, twisted, and dead. His eyes were open and stared straight at me; a small trickle of blood and spit dripped from his mouth, pooling on the soil in front of his body.

No one else in the village noticed or reacted in any way to their neighbor's sudden and violent death.

Blunderbore returned to playing with the crosses. His sniffing the gold made a hideous sound.

“You’ll give back everything you stole from us. Then we’ll kill you. If we feel like it, we might not kill your wife, children, and grandchildren. Well, not all of them. Maybe,” said the companion, giggling and smiling wide to review little stubs of teeth caked in what looked like dried blood.

I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. But I felt naked and frozen. How could this be happening?

“The goose died. Years ago,” I stammered.

“We know. Give us everything you traded the eggs for, Jack. The longer you hesitate. The more of your family will die, too.”

I had to run. I had to run. I could feel my breath quickening. My heart raced. I tasted the blood of fear down in my throat.

…

My sleeping body jumped, and my eyes opened. My heart raced and a cold sweat poured from my body.

It was the middle of the night. Our bedroom was lit with a very pale moonlight, and I could see bright stars against a black sky just outside. A cool but gentle breeze poured through the window.

The dream was gone, but it had not left me. Surely, this was a portent of something to come. Blunderbore was dead. I stuffed his bleached bones in a sack and buried them in a grave. So, who was this and who was his little companion? How could I not recognized him? What did all this mean?

Just then, my eyes caught a sparkling green light hovering over the odd parchment that I had found in Blunderbore’s purse. It was the faintest pinprick of green light. But I recognized it instantly as the light of a fairy. I hadn’t seen any fairies in these parts for years. They all left when the spiders came.

The fairy moved about the parchment as if she was reading it line by line.

I sat up in bed to get a better look, which caused the bed to creak. The fairy must have heard the creaking bed. She swirled about. I guessed she turned to look at me, but she was too small and too far away to see clearly. I heard a tiny giggle like the sound of child caught doing mischief. Then she sailed across the room and out the window faster than my eyes could follow her.

I have no idea what any of these things mean. But I know now that I must prepare for anything and everything.