Mary Lamb Follow that Mouse

INTRODUCTION

IS IT REALITY OR A NIGHTMARE?

Mary frantically struggled to climb through the thick, heavy undergrowth in the swampy bog shouldering dark and ominous bush.  Her hands and face were scratched and bleeding from sharp prickly branches and razor-edged grasses. Her feet felt like leaden weights in her lethargic effort to move.

She shivered at the cold morning fog seeping into her bones. Her running shoes slurped and sloshed in the mud and water pooling at each footstep. Her heart thumped wildly, as though it were going to break out of her chest. Mary was lost and exhausted. The confusion of panic added to her anxiety to find the safety of the path heading home. She desperately tried to determine which way to go. Mary had always intensely disliked fog, which compounded her terror. The creatures of the swamp were beginning to stir with the awakening of the new day, and for some reason, birds, frogs and crickets sounded excessively loud and raucous to the panic-stricken little girl. Crows cawed incessantly. The brushes swayed and crackled.  Everything seemed in motion.

Long disheveled strands hung from Mary’s blonde braid. Mud caked her coveralls. Her mouth hung open in fright and extreme thirst.  She panted and gasped. How long had she been futilely trying to find her way back home? I must get home. There has to be a way out of here. Surely it is in that direction. Mary’s voice quaked, as she loudly repeated words of encouragement to herself.

I wish that I wasn’t so tiny. I want to be back to my normal size, big enough to see about the grasses. Then I would be able to find the path. How did I ever get so small? Mom was right. I should have stayed home. I should have stayed home.

All the time Mary was talking to herself, she struggled to fight her way through the brush and heavy undergrowth. Suddenly she stopped. Everything had become an eerie quiet, with no croaking frogs, neither squawking birds nor chirping bugs, nothing but an unnerving silence. Mary shivered, sensing an ominous presence. With heart wildly pounding, she gaped around, wondering what was wrong.

She sensed imminent danger before seeing anything. A sudden, huge, dark shadow, a deafening bone-chilling screech and the wild rush of air from massive wings, gave Mary no other warning.

She screamed at the intense pain of large sharp talons gripping into her back and picking her off the ground with a giant swoop. Fields and trees and the buildings of her now visible home, fell beneath her, as she was carried away in an excruciating death grip.

CHAPTER 1

IT ALL BEGINS

Mary Lamb was so excited, barely able to contain herself. Today was her 6th birthday, which meant that in exactly one week, she would begin school. Everything about this day promised wonderful magic. 

Mary had no inkling of how much her life was going to change from this day forth.  She also had no idea how different she was from other six-year-olds.

She leaned back in bed, thinking about the mysteries of going to school, making new friends her own age, and belonging to something wonderful and exciting. She longed to have playmates, especially one to share a secret.

She closed her eyes, revelling at the wonder of a friend her own age. She smiled at that thought, not sure she ever had a secret worth sharing. She frowned, thinking maybe no one would like her. But the excitement of going to school for the first time prevailed.

Mary imagined the thrill of opening the pages of a brand new book. Her mother had taught her the alphabet, how to spell and read a considerable number of words. She knew the numbers from one to one hundred and could do simple arithmetic. However, she had never owned or even seen a brand new book, which was something she wanted more than anything. The mystery and excitement of new books, pencils and lessons intrigued her.

She stared at the familiar knots in the ceiling boards. She loved the individual personality of each knot. She would lie there each morning, squinting up through half-closed eyes, clearly seeing the face of a fox warily glancing about and peering down at her, watching a busy woodpecker noisily pecking away, a morning glory flower furling and unfurling its blossom, a sparrow fluffing its wings as it warbled. She especially liked the pine knot that was a field mouse, audibly tittering and smiling down her.

On many occasions, Mary had pulled her mother onto the bed and excitedly tried to show her the menagerie of creatures living in the boards.  Ruth invariably shook her head and laughed, saying that Mary had such a vivid imagination. Ruth could only see pine knots.

Mary gazed around at her surroundings. The quilt covering her bed had been there as long as she could remember. Her mother had stitched it by hand, using pieces of colourful fabric that she had salvaged from well-worn dresses, old blouses and shirts, and other scraps of material from items that only had bits and pieces left to offer. It was composed of vivid colour combinations and an eclectic selection of fabrics.

She was certain that the red squares had originated from the tunic of a brave soldier ancestor. She fantasized that the white squares came from the wedding gown of a distant relative, who was a beautiful princess. This blanket held many great tales of origin for the little girl.

In one corner of her room stood a decrepit, painted, brick chimney, no longer used for any heat source. When the stove had been removed in the room below years ago, the old chimney had been left in its unused state. One of the bricks near the floor had worked loose, easy to pull out by hand.

However, unless one looked closely, this could not be readily seen. Mary knew it was there, considering it her very own secret hiding place. She had placed a little tin box holding her only treasures, in the tiny space behind that brick.

Mary’s treasure trove contained no money, jewels, nor any item of significant monetary value. However, to her, they were special things that she loved dearly.  She especially liked a little pink necklace, made of plastic loops comprising the chain. Dangling from it was a tiny, pink, plastic heart with the faint outline of a teddy bear, where the stencil had worn off.

It was the only piece of jewelry that Mary had ever owned. From time to time, she would take it out of the box and lovingly admire it, and sometimes fasten it around her neck and ogle herself in the mirror.

This tin box also contained a red rabbit’s foot with a metal chain loop. Her father had given it to her, and because it was the only gift she had ever received from him, she kept it. However, she shuddered at the thought that this was an animal’s foot, avoiding touching it.

The other items included a smooth round stone that she had found. She was certain that it was valuable, and besides that, it felt cool and wonderful in the palm of her hand. She liked to hold and stroke it when she lay on her bed daydreaming. Other treasures included a broken hair clip, a black button with a rhinestone in the middle, which Mary thought was a diamond and a small tattered photo of her mother when she was a little girl. Mary frequently took this photograph to the window, peering at it, wishing that the image was bigger and clearer. And that was the total sum of Mary Lamb’s treasures.

Her little room was devoid of toys, with the exception of one well-worn shabby brown teddy bear, sitting in a rickety rocking chair in the corner. The bear was obviously a baby’s toy, holding no interest for this six-year old.

There was one tall narrow window in this room, with a ledge wide enough for Mary to sit on. The room faced east onto a swampy area at the back of the house. This window was the type found in most old homes. One had to lift the window up and prop it open with a stick. The hatch at the top to hold it open was long gone.

It was easy for Mary to open for access to the sweet-smelling cool morning summer air. It also offered a bird’s eye view of the rising sun. Mary kept this window open all the time, even though it didn’t have a screen, and provided easy entry for mosquitoes, other bugs and creatures. This window opened onto the gently sloping flat roof of the old back porch of the house.

This morning, at the same time as most mornings, a large raven lighted on this window sill, kibitzing for Mary’s attention. This morning was no different.  Helloooo! Did you know? It’s my birthday! It’s my birthday. Mary bounded out of bed skipping to the window.

The raven cocked its head to one side, shuffling its wings. Putting its beak close to Mary’s face it squawked, Cruck, cruck, happy cruck sixth birthday Mary Lamb! Cruck, cruck.  The raven flapped its wings and flew off.

Mary’s eyes widened and she shook her head. Gee, I’m sure he just talked to me. I must be imagining good things.

Although it was strictly forbidden, Mary quietly slipped outside to perch on the roof in front of her window. She loved the exhilaration of observing the world from this lofty perch, and although she obeyed her mother’s admonitions most of the time, sometimes the temptation to climb out on the roof was just too tantalizing to resist.

From this perch, she watched deer drift out of the swamp, nibble on trees and graze in the field. She giggled at rabbits scurrying along the pathways, marvelling at birds, at almost eye level, in the nearby maple trees. She had no inkling that this simple window was destined to play a most important role in her life. She also had no idea of who or what was destined to enter that portal.

Mary was an unusual little girl, inasmuch as she had never attended nursery school or kindergarten, nor been involved in any organized activity with other children, let alone those her own age. She had never stepped foot inside a school, church or any public building. She had not played the games that other children would take for granted.

Mary lived in an isolated environment, without any access to the normal world.  There was no television in her home. She did not know about Sesame Street, nursery rhymes or the multitude of games and toys that most children understood so easily as second nature. 

It was, therefore, understandable that Mary was so excited about the prospect of beginning school and meeting other children. But this anticipation was also marred by her fear of the unknown, and her lack of understanding about a structured organized environment. However, her insatiable curiosity, which would thrust her into great danger in the near future, spurred her enthusiasm.

Mary was a sturdy little girl, with snowy long blonde hair, that her mother brushed and plaited each morning, into one thick braid that hung down the centre of her back. The end was always tied with a red ribbon. She had huge, dark brown eyes caught in a sun-browned face. 

Mary always wore t-shirts, plaid shirts, faded patched denim coveralls and well-worn running shoes. The knees of her coveralls started out faded clean each morning, and ended the day soiled brown/black and sometimes torn. Wisps of hair continually broke away from her braid, giving her a slightly wild and disheveled appearance.

Mary loved being outdoors more than anything. She would spend hours roaming the fields, swamp and hills around her home. She climbed trees and suffered scratches, bruises and falls, and yet, miraculously, escaped serious injury.

One day, when Mary was crawling through heavy underbrush and prickly berry bushes at the base of a hill, she was drawn to two large boulders adjacent to each other.

For some reason, they fascinated her, drawing her like a magnet. She feverishly pulled out dead limbs and weeds that clogged the space between the two rocks.  When satisfied that it was properly cleaned out, she leaned back exhausted against one boulder, propping up her feet against the other, wondering what had possessed her.

She glanced down and was drawn to a small round hole in the ground, approximately two inches in diameter, which could have been a snake’s tunnel. She got down on the ground and tried to peer into it. She could see nothing, but was certain that she could hear weird faint sounds. She held her ear against the hole, spellbound. Yes, she was positive that she could hear something, extraordinary sounds.

Mary was excited. There is a world down there! Wow! I wonder who is there? Oh, this is so exciting! I’m going to build my own little house right here. Someone is down there! I may have company!

Enthusiastically, she had returned to that spot each day. She dragged limbs to span the top of the two boulders, forming a crude makeshift roof, which she covered with evergreen boughs. She piled sticks and branches against one end, and covered the ground in this little enclosure with spruce branches. On the completion of her wee ‘house’, she had stretched out on the fragrant evergreen bed, and drifted off in a comfortable deep sleep, dreaming of amazing beings living beneath her new house in a world below. 

Mary believed that plants, bugs and all the creatures she encountered, understood what she was saying when she conversed with them.

She talked to flowers, buzzing bees, a chickadee, the butterfly fluttering over the bushes and even a mouse in the grass, carrying on long conversations with them, asking questions and often speculating on the responses. She would lie back listening to the sounds all around, quite happy in her snug world. Mary Lamb had no idea of what lay ahead or how drastically her life was going to  change. 

Mary, hurry up and get down here for your breakfast! I’m going to be late for work. Come on! Ruth Lamb scowled at the bubbling porridge, furiously trying to stir out the lumps with a big wooden spoon.

Gad, this place is hot. I just can’t stand this heat! she commented more to herself, than the gruff-looking man at the table. Someday we’ll have an electric stove that works and I won’t have to put a fire on in the dead of summer just to make breakfast.

She brushed back the hair from her face and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. Little streaks of perspiration ran down the sides of her face from the heat belting out of the old kitchen wood stove.

Mary bore little resemblance to her mother, although Ruth did have large brown eyes. Her shoulder-length brownish blonde hair curled naturally, appearing always in disarray. Therefore, she wore it tied back severely into a ponytail, or sometimes pinned into a bun. Perhaps it was for appearance sake, or the fact that she worked as a waitress in a restaurant, that prompted this rather austere hairstyle.

Ruth’s clothing consisted almost entirely of blue cotton waitress uniforms, blue knee-length dresses with short sleeves and white collars, plain white aprons and white running shoes. This sparse wardrobe was clean, crisply starched and ironed. When she wasn’t working, she wore faded blue jeans, t-shirts and plaid shirts that looked like hand-downs from a working man’s attire.

Although Ruth was only twenty-nine years old, she looked more like a woman twice her age. She wore no makeup and her hands were rough and work-worn.  She had a worried look and seldom, if ever, laughed. Her whole demeanour appeared agitated. 

Any attempt to transform the weather-beaten and time-ravaged old house into a comfortable home was attributed to her efforts. The kitchen window opposite the old wood stove was decorated with white frilly curtains that she sewed by hand, and tied back with bows. On the sill, a geranium planted in a coffee can, boasted bright red blooms, almost filling the whole window. 

Even the red flowered plastic table cloth brightened the drabness. In the center of the table, a fruit jar blossomed with daisies, buttercups and other assorted wildflowers. An old china cupboard, missing its large top door, stood in one corner of the room. Ruth had ingeniously fashioned a curtain rod to the inside of the top of this door, and hung a frilled, flowered curtain, which she fashioned by hand from an odd scrap of material. The room was welcoming by any standard. However, the poverty was not disguised.

Mary! Where are you? Get down here now! Breakfast is on the table!