Ask the Bones Read online

  The boy didn’t get another wink of sleep that entire night. When the sun finally rose, he peered through the grating in the cupboard door.

  He could scarcely believe what he saw. There were great clumps of hair on the floor and blood was spattered everywhere. Scarier still was the monstrous carcass lying against the far wall. It was bigger than a cow and had the most hideous face the boy had ever seen—the face of a goblin rat.

  Now the boy understood why the priests had fled from the temple.

  But what on earth could have torn the goblin rat apart? The boy pushed open the cupboard door and crawled out. He rubbed his aching arms and legs and looked around. Except for the gory mess, everything in the temple looked just as it had the evening before.

  Or did it?

  The boy looked at the cats he had painted on the great white screens, and he saw that every mouth of every cat was stained with blood—the blood of the goblin rat.

  Ask the Bones

  • A Tale from the Caucasus Region •

  Yusef had always avoided the man with cruel eyes who came to the outdoor market to hire young servants. But now the boy was desperate.

  He could no longer run errands for the old woman who’d sold vegetables, because she had died. His coins were gone and his hunger pangs were unbearable.

  Yusef watched the cruel man buying silk and spices at a nearby stand. And when the man took money from his pouch, two rubies tumbled out. The man quickly scooped them up.

  But Yusef had seen them. Surely such a rich man could buy good food for his servants. Yusef tugged at the man’s cloak.

  “Well?” asked the man harshly.

  “Could I work for you?” Yusef stammered.

  “I can always use another boy,” the man said. “But where’s your family?”

  “I have no family,” said Yusef.

  The man’s eyes glinted more cruelly than before. “Come along, then.” And he loaded all his purchases into the young boy’s arms.

  When they arrived at the man’s home, he showed Yusef a place where he could sleep in the barn. At least the straw was soft, and there was a roof overhead.

  The boy was given food each day, scraps, really, from his master’s table. But to Yusef it was a feast. In return, he cared for the man’s livestock—cows, calves, bulls, and camels.

  The man had hired other boys before, but none lived there now. Yusef wondered where they’d found work.

  All went well for almost a week. Then the man asked him to kill a bull and skin it. It was a miserable, bloody task, but Yusef gritted his teeth and did what he was told. And no sooner had he wiped the gore off his hands and face than his master ordered him to prepare two camels for a journey. “One for me and one to carry the hide of the bull.”

  Yusef thought they would travel to the outdoor market and sell the hide there. Instead they headed toward a wild and lonely plain. The boy grew more uneasy by the hour. He walked behind the camels with the sun beating down upon him. The stones were sharp underfoot. Up ahead, a mountain rose like a needle into the sky. Its sides were incredibly steep, and there were no footholds in sight.

  Yusef ran alongside the camel that was carrying his master. “Why do we need a bull’s hide out here?” he asked.

  “No questions,” the man said. “Just do what I tell you.” And his eyes looked colder than ever.

  By the time they reached the base of the mountain, Yusef was sick with fear, and with good reason, for the man ordered him to spread the bull’s smelly hide on the ground and lie on it.

  The boy knew that the man was stronger than he was, so he squatted on the hide, ready to jump if necessary. But the man knocked him flat and tied the hide around him so quickly that Yusef hardly knew what was happening. Then the man hid behind a rock.

  Within moments Yusef felt himself rising into the air, the hide clutched in the talons of a giant bird. He landed with a jolt on the mountaintop.

  The bird began to rip off the remaining bits of the bull’s flesh. It punctured the hide and raked its sharp beak across the boy’s shoulder. He panicked. Kicking and punching, he fought his way out of the hide and frightened the bird away.

  His legs were shaking, but he walked to the edge of the mountain and looked down.

  “Hurry,” the man shouted from below. “Throw me the gems that are around your feet.”

  The boy was amazed. Diamonds, rubies, and emeralds covered the ground. He threw them down by the handful.

  The man grabbed some empty sacks from behind his saddle, filled them with gems, and laid them across one camel’s back. Then he mounted the other camel and began to ride away.

  “Wait!” cried Yosef. “How do I get down?”

  “That’s for you to figure out,” shouted the man. “Don’t ask me. Ask the bones.” And off he went.

  What bones?

  The boy lay down, with his head over the edge of the mountain so he could peer at its sheer walls. He felt something hard beneath his chest. He dragged it out and stared at it with horror. It was a skull. A skull about the size of his own. He looked around and saw bones all over the mountaintop. There were leg bones and arm bones and finger bones and toe bones. And skulls everywhere. A few tears streamed down Yusef’s cheeks. How many boys had the cruel man abandoned there? And how long would it be before his own bones were picked clean by the giant bird?

  He turned the skull over in his hands and looked into its empty sockets. Suddenly he was furious. He would not let the cruel man destroy him.

  He explored every inch of that mountaintop. And when he found the bird’s nest, he knew there was hope. He hid under the nest’s rim and waited until the giant bird landed. Then he jumped up and grabbed its legs.

  The bird let out an ear-splitting squawk. Then it soared into the sky, with Yusef hanging on beneath. It spiraled upward, gliding on the currents of hot air that rose from the sun-baked earth. Yusef’s arms began to ache. His fingers cramped, but he held tight, waiting for the bird to dive low. And when it finally did, he closed his eyes and dropped to the ground.

  He landed hard, tumbling over rough sand and stones, but he was safe. So he picked himself up and began walking back to the man’s house.

  His plan was dangerous, but he was too angry to care. When he finally reached the man’s door, he knocked and asked for work.

  “Of course,” said the man. “I can always use another boy. ”

  Just as Yusef had hoped, the man didn’t recognize him. The boy’s face was bruised and swollen from the fall. Besides, the man would never imagine anyone returning from the mountaintop.

  Soon after, the man sent Yusef to kill a bull and skin it, and it wasn’t long before they traveled back to the base of the mountain. Again the man ordered the boy to lie down on the hide.

  “Show me how,” said Yusef.

  “What? You want me to ruin my cloak on that bloody hide?” roared the man. He lunged forward, but the boy slipped aside, tripping the man with his foot.

  And while the man lay stunned, Yusef whipped the hide around him and tied it tight. Then he hid behind a rock.

  Again the giant bird swooped down and grasped the hide, this time with the man inside it. Again it flew to the top of the mountain, and again it was frightened away.

  When the man struggled free, he raced to the edge.

  “Hurry,” Yusef shouted from below, “throw me the gems that are around your feet.”

  The man recognized his own words. But they were coming from the lips of the boy—the very boy, he now realized, he had left on the mountaintop a few days earlier.

  The man bellowed with rage. He kicked the hide over the edge in a shower of gems and tore the bird’s nest to shreds. And while Yusef picked up diamonds and rubies, the man heaved bones at the bird circling overhead. It flew away, never to return.

  The man ran back to the edge of the mountain and saw the boy riding away with bags full of gems. “Wait!” howled the man. “How did you get down?”

  “I flew.”

 
“Flew?” the man screeched, suddenly realizing he should not have chased away the giant bird. “But how will I get down?”

  The boy kept riding, but his words floated up to the mountaintop.

  “Don’t ask me. Ask the bones!”

  The Four-Footed Horror

  • A Tale from the United States.•

  Morning, noon and night, the man kicked at the little black dog.

  For some reason, the dog was always dripping wet, even on sunny days. And the man could not stand the smell of its damp fur. He tried to chase the dog out of his cabin. He threw his boots at it and even shot at it, but nothing frightened the little black dog. Finally, he went after it with his broom, but his broom swished right through it.

  That’s when the man noticed something that chilled him to the bone. The dog cast no shadow. The man shivered, because now he knew—that dog was a ghost.

  The dog followed him everywhere he went, sometimes making its presence known with a cold draft on the man’s ankles. Sometimes it appeared as the tip of one black ear, twitching nearby, or as a pair of disembodied eyes.

  And every time that dog came near, the man screamed.

  Neighbors heard him for miles around. They watched him running down the road, dodging and hopping, as if something were nipping at his heels. But no one saw a thing.

  They began to whisper about him and hurry to the other side of the road when he dashed past.

  One evening, the man tried to lure the dog outside his cabin by leaving a bowl of food on the porch, and a bowl of water, too. But that very night, the dog slipped into the man’s bed and burrowed under his blankets to warm itself. The man woke up freezing.

  And when he saw that ice-cold dog with its head on his pillow, he leaped straight into the air with a bloodcurdling yell.

  He hit the floor running, pulled on his trousers, and raced down to the barn. He grabbed his saddlebags, packed one with hay and grain and the other with apples and biscuits. Then he jumped on his mule and galloped right out of Kentucky. The more miles he put between himself and that dog, the better.

  When he finally reached Missouri he stopped to spend the night in a deserted cabin. He was sore from the long ride, hungry, and desperately tired.

  But when he opened the door, what did he see?

  The little black dog.

  Well, the man just about jumped out of his skin. He threw himself on his mule and rode all the way back to Kentucky. By now he was about to collapse, and so was the mule. And when he looked into his cabin, he fainted.

  There was the little black dog.

  When he came to, he saw that the dog was carrying a bone in its mouth, and it certainly wasn’t a hog bone. It was a human bone, from a human leg—a dripping wet human bone—and that dog was trying to drop it right on the man’s foot.

  He leaped to his feet and ran screeching down the road with the dog chasing him, the leg bone clutched in its teeth.

  Even the meanest dogs in the county slunk away when they sensed that little black dog coming, their tails tucked between their legs.

  But the man couldn’t get away from his ghostly companion. All the time he was pounding on his neighbor’s door, the dog was trying to drop that bone on him. “Help!” he cried.

  The neighbor peered out the window and watched the man hop around the porch, kicking at nothing. The neighbor was afraid to open his door, but he finally came out and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “I haven’t had a moment’s peace,” the man cried, “since I killed a bothersome peddler, and his dog too, and threw them both in my pond.

  “See that little black dog,” he sobbed. “It’s come back to haunt me.”

  The neighbor couldn’t see it. But he went to get the sheriff, and they pulled the bones out of the pond. Then they buried the bones of that loyal dog in the graveyard right beside the bones of its master and took the killer off to jail.

  And where was the jail? Right beside the graveyard.

  The man never saw the little black dog again. But it haunted him for the rest of his life. Whenever he fell asleep at night, he was awakened by the overpowering smell of wet dog.

  Beginning with the Ears

  • A Tale from lraq •

  There once was a man named Abdu who had trouble finding work. He was very poor, and his wife and children were always hungry.

  In desperation, Abdu left the town where he lived to see if he could earn a few coins in the countryside. But no matter how far he walked, he found no one who needed his help. By afternoon, he was weak and tired, for he had not had a bite to eat all day.

  Suddenly he saw an old woman coming toward him. She was bent and wrinkled and wore a flowered kerchief over her hair. “Where are you going?” she asked.

  “Who knows,” he cried. “I must wander from place to place until I earn enough to support my wife and children.”

  “Do not despair,” she said. “Bring your family to live with me, Abdu, and we will share my wealth.”

  Abdu was amazed. “Who are you?” he asked. “And how do you know my name?”

  “I’m your cousin,” she replied. “I’m old and alone and would like your company. If you and your family live with me, no one will have to go hungry.”

  Abdu could hardly believe his ears, and hope began to grow in his heart. He felt strong again, and he ran home to tell his wife and children all that he had heard. They were delighted to learn of their long-lost cousin.

  That very evening they left town and walked out to meet the old woman, who was waiting for them in the middle of the road.

  She took them home and let them eat to their hearts’ content. “And soon you shall have milk to drink,” she told them. She picked up a pail and went out to the barn.

  Abdu’s wife followed to see if she could help with the milking, but as she approached the barn, she overheard the old woman talking to her cow. “Tomorrow I shall eat my guests,” she said.

  The cow mooed as if to say, “No, no, no!” And Abdu’s wife rushed back to the house to warn her husband.

  “We must leave at once,” she cried. “The old woman told the cow she is planning to eat us tomorrow!”

  Abdu was angry. “You didn’t hear right,” he said. “Look how kind and generous she has been.”

  Abdu’s wife finally agreed to stay, but she was too frightened to sleep all night.

  The next morning, Abdu’s wife again followed the old woman out to the barn. Again she overheard what the old woman said. “Ah, today I shall eat my guests!” And again the cow mooed as if to say, “No, no, no!”

  Abdu’s wife ran back to the house as fast as she could. “We can’t stay here a moment longer. The old woman is planning to eat us today!” she cried. But still Abdu refused to listen.

  “Is there something wrong with your ears?” she shouted. “Stay if you like, but I am taking the children back home.” And that is exactly what she did.

  When the old woman returned from the barn and saw that only Abdu was left, she decided to eat him right away. She blocked the doorway and screeched at him, “I’m not your cousin!” Her back straightened, her wrinkles faded away, and her kerchief fell off, revealing long, dark hair. “I am a witch,” she said, “who likes nothing better than eating the fools who come to live in my house!

  “Tell me,” she asked, “which part of your body should I eat first?” She pulled a metal file from her pocket and began to sharpen her teeth.

  Abdu was trembling from head to toe. He realized he was trapped and there was nothing he could do.

  “My wife warned me,” he said, “but I would not listen. So begin with my ears.”

  Fiddling with Fire

  • A Tale from the United States •

  Never before had Lucas visited the cemetery at night. Never had he been there alone. A chill wind was blowing through the trees, sending moon shadows slithering across the gravestones.

  Lucas shivered, but he knew he must stay. That’s what he’d been told by an old granny woman: “If you
want to learn to fiddle, go to the graveyard alone and practice all night.

  “But don’t be greedy,” she’d whispered, and Lucas had seen fear in her eyes.

  He wanted to run home, but he forced himself to sit on a mossy gravestone and tuck his fiddle under his chin. He drew the bow across the strings. The screeching and squawking were unbearable. He stopped for a moment and heard a chorus of frogs croaking in the nearby meadow. “They sound better than I do,” he moaned.

  But he took up his fiddle and tried again. This time he hit a few melodious notes. Lucas was so excited that he didn’t notice a whiff of smoke in the air.

  He practiced hour after hour. The smoke grew thicker, but Lucas noticed nothing but his music. The screeching and squawking were gone now. Still he wasn’t satisfied.

  “I wish I were the best fiddler in the world,” he shouted to the moon.

  “You can be,” said a voice from behind his back.

  Lucas whirled around, his heart in his throat.

  There stood a horrifying figure, dressed in a long black cloak lined with red and smoldering at the hem. His black boots were licked by tongues of flame. And his pointed tail thrashed smoke from side to side. Lucas cringed, for now he knew who’d been teaching him to fiddle that night.

  “Give it here,” demanded the devil. And he began to play. His fingers danced over the strings and firmly guided the bow. Songs burst forth, so bewitching that Lucas could think of nothing else. “I didn’t know you could play,” gasped Lucas.

  “Play?” snapped the devil. “I invented the fiddle.” And he began a fiery tune. His fingers moved in a blur.

  “I’d give anything to play like that,” Lucas cried.

  An evil grin spread across the devil’s face. “Even your soul?”

  Lucas felt the hot breath of the devil upon him. He drew back, shuddering. But then the devil resumed playing. “You can keep your soul until you die,” said the devil, “then it’s mine.” He played so passionately that Lucas began to clap his hands and stomp his feet.