THE TEMPTING OF THOMAS GOODMAN

Thomas held up the lantern to get his bearings, but suddenly it sputtered and died, and he was swallowed up by the profound darkness of the wild meadows. He took a couple of faltering steps, then watched in horror as an unnatural light shivered cold and silent across the pool of water he had almost stumbled into. He stood trembling and unable to move, knowing that never, in all the times he had crossed these hills and hollows and fields, had he ever seen this pool. And worse, was the bone-deep knowing that something had purposely led him here.

* * *

Earlier that afternoon, Thomas’s small village had been in an uproar. Church bells ringing on a weekday usually meant fire, and brought everyone at a run or gallop from all the surrounding fields. Twenty-four year old Thomas had just finished shining up his best boots, and was laying out the new suit of clothes he would wear to the church tomorrow, when he heard the bells. He considered for a moment catching the old grey mare he used for plowing the fields of his farm, but thought better of it and set off at a run for the village square.

The widow Hawkins, tearful and leaning heavily on Friar Joseph’s arm, met them all. Two days ago, she told them, her only son Jeremy, a proud and headstrong young man of seventeen, had disappeared. He had gone out at dusk after another argument with her over money and had not been seen again. At first she had believed he was being stubborn and had raised no alarm. But after he didn't come home again the following night, she had gone to the friar, terribly afraid and distraught.

Lanterns were brought and search parties formed. Thomas, with his shy smile and humble manners, was in particular asked to help and he was more than glad to lend a hand. Thomas, they all said, knew the meadowlands better than anyone, for he spent all his free time wandering over every hill and obscure meadowland path in search of the medicinal plants and herbs that he gave away to anyone in need. Thomas would find the lad, they said, if he could be found at all.

Yet somehow, unaware, Thomas had wandered far away from the other searchers, and found himself alone, deep in the wildest part of the meadowlands with night swiftly overtaking him. And he knew, with a deep certainty, that something had led him this way. Perhaps it was only his sensitivity to the land, the bend of the grasses, a certain taste on the air. Perhaps it was instinct, a feeling that Jeremy had indeed passed this way. Or . . . and this thought shivered like the finger of the dead, cold and terrible, up his spine, that perhaps there was something, that for some unknown and unspeakable purpose, would lead a man astray to this place. That something had led Jeremy here, and now him.

He was not afraid of being alone, he had spent many hours wandering alone over the wild hills, but he was badly shaken by this feeling of having been unconsciously and unwillingly led. There were stories of haunts of course, but Thomas had never believed in them. The true danger, he knew, lay in the land itself, in the sudden bogs and sinkholes that could swallow a man, and leave no trace.

No one, not even one who knew the meadows as well as Thomas, would willingly stray alone here after dark. And he had no wish to be lost here tonight, not this night.

He lit his lantern and raised it high to search for any familiar landmark. He swung the lantern in a wide arc around him and the firelight streamed like a tail behind it.

* * *

He was fourteen the first time he saw her. She was ten years old. A magical sprite of a child she was, and when she ran, and she could run with the wind, her hair streamed out like comet fire behind her.

* * *

By the light of the lantern, he was able to get a vague sense of where he was, yet things still seemed frighteningly unfamiliar. He called out, but an unnatural silence was his only answer. No night birds chirped, no crickets or frogs trilled, no wind stirred the tall grass. He took a few steps forward, looking up for the stars that could give him direction, but there were no stars, only an empty blackness overhead, as if suddenly, the stars had all gone out.

Thomas stopped. Even the ground beneath his feet felt wrong. The air was heavy and too still. It began to weigh on him, to press at him so that he had to walk on, unwillingly, haltingly, but unable to turn back. Then his lantern sputtered and died, abandoning him to a vast and heavy darkness that closed him in on all sides.

He stumbled forward, and the water had nearly claimed him before he realized it was before him. And now he stood trembling on the brink of a pool he knew did not exist. Thomas turned, but behind him was only blackness. Above him was blackness too. The only light at all came up from the water itself. An eerie light it was, that grew as he watched. Haunt light.

A cold sweat broke out on his face. He set his lantern down. Little good it did him now. He closed his eyes, the first word of a prayer on his lips. A stirring of the water, the whisper of a ripple and splash stopped him cold, and his eyes flew open to watch with dread as two large black goblins climbed slowly up out of the water, one to his right hand and one to his left.

Bog-goblins. They came up out of the pool, dripping streams of haunt-lit water, and stalked heavily across the bank to squat down on either side of Thomas. Thomas shuddered with revulsion as their dark gnarled bodies seemed to bulge and ripple as they moved, like water contained in a skin. Haunt light caught and reflected from wet matted hair, nails like claws, and rotten teeth. They smelled of stagnant water and decay.

The goblin on Thomas's left leaned close. Eyes that seemed only deep pits of darkness stared at him. Thomas could feel the clammy touch of its breath on his face. “Man . . . ” it said. Its voice was deep, gritty and cold, like the oozing of quicksand over the dead. “Man,” it said again, “we can make you rich.”

“Rich,” echoed the goblin on his right. “The treasure of forgotten kingdoms lies in this place.”

Thomas looked neither left nor right. He wanted to stand tall and straight and unafraid, but in a moment his knees gave way and he sank to the ground. He sat, his arms wrapped tightly around his legs and tried to stop shaking. “How can that be,” he whispered finally.

“Five hundred years ago,” said the voice on his left.

“A magician cursed a princess,” continued the voice on his right.

“He imprisoned her.”

“With her treasure.”

“At the bottom.”

“Of this pool.”

* * *

It was by Colin's Pond he had first seen her, as she skipped from rock to slippery rock in the shallows at the edge of the deep water. Her bare feet, sure and steady, flashed and met their dark reflections in the silvery water. He stood transfixed in the flickering tree shadows, all sound silenced, all vision but her lost, until a stone turned and she fell, and the water swallowed her up.

* * *

“You can save her.”

“Save the princess.”

“She will give you all her treasure.”

“If you save her from the pool.”

* * *

She took the hand he offered her and let him pull her from the water, soaking wet, unharmed and laughing. “I can swim, she said. “Can you?”

“Yes,” he said. And his heart was swimming in the memory of her smile as he watched her run home across the fields.

* * *

“She was a beautiful princess.”

“The most beautiful princess that ever lived.”

“Her hair was as golden as sunlight.”

“Her skin soft as down.”

“Her eyes were as green.”

“As the first leaves of spring.”

“And she when she danced . . . ”

* * *

At the dance she had shone, her red-gold hair bright as a fiery sunset, spinning round and round to the music in a flash of calico skirts, of clapping hands and a sparkle of laughing blue eyes. She was a child no longer. He could not stop watching her.

She danced with the sons of the nearby manor lord, and at last he had wandered away, heart-struck, to stand upon the hill and watch the stars come out in the deep blue sky. A woman like that would never care for him.

* * *

“ . . . and when she danced…”

“She was music.”

The two black goblins leaned closer to Thomas. “She's down there, now.”

“Down there in the pool.”

“Not too far down.”

“Not too far for you.”

“Waiting with her treasure.”

“For you.”

“For you.”

* * *

No, he thought, as he stood on the hill, listening to the stains of flute and fiddle and drum and laughter that floated up to him, a woman like that would want a rich man's son.

* * *

Thomas's breath came out in a quiver of air against the blackness of the night. “And I could have it all?” he whispered. “All of the treasure? I could be rich?”

The goblins quivered, joyful, hopeful. “Look” they said.

“Look in the water.”

“You can see it!”

“The treasure!”

Their voices were eager, hypnotic, urgent. Thomas stood, stepped into water.

“Look there,” they said.

“It shines.”

“It sparkles.”

Thomas took another step. Water closed around his ankle. Before him, in the deepest center of the pool, the water was alive with light. Thomas saw the haunt light turn to jewels before his eyes. Ruby, pearl, gold and diamond. Riches beyond a poor man's dreams. Silver, amethyst and sapphire . . .

* * *

But soft as a breath she came to him, as the moon rose silver and pearl above the meadow, she came up the hill and stood by his side. She was alive with heat and light. Thomas felt the fire of her nearness against his skin as she stood there. He trembled to be so near her. But when she spoke all of his fear melted away.

“There is a kind of man,” she said, as she stood by his side, “who can see the treasure inside a seed, who seeks only the gold of the golden sunlight rippling across the windy fields, who can look up in awe at the vastness of the heavens and find diamonds in the stars.”

Thomas turned and her eyes were sapphire jewels of reflected starlight. “There is a kind of man who will love the land and the laughter of his children with all his heart, and know that in these things alone he is truly rich. This is the kind of man I wish to marry.”

Her eyes held him and made him feel as still as deep water inside his soul.

“Do you know of such a man?” she asked.

And Thomas said simply, “Yes.”

Her hand sought his and rested there like a small bird come to nest. “I thought you did,” she said softly. “I knew.”

* * *

Thomas stood in the cold jewel-lit water up to his knees. Before him was riches beyond imagining. He closed his eyes and slowly turned his back on the treasure. His feet were heavy, held down by the water, each step an effort of muscle and will. But slowly, steadily, he fought for and won the dry land, stepped out of the water's grasp and stood between the goblins.

“I am to be married tomorrow,” he said, his voice unsteady but certain. “There is no treasure here that can make me richer than I am already.” He picked up his lantern and forced his trembling legs to walk back into the blackness away from the pool.

After ten steps, the stars filled up the sky again, after twenty, his lantern sputtered back to life.

“That you, Thom?” cried a voice from the next hill.

“Yes,” answered Thomas, his voice barely over a whisper. “Yes!” he called louder. “I'm here!”

A large man came running up. “Lord, Thom. We were beginning to think we had lost you too. And on the eve of your wedding and all.”

“I'm all right, John, all right now. My lamp went out and I couldn't find my way for a while.” He turned and looked behind him. There was no sign of any pool, of anything unusual. “I don't think we'll be finding young Jeremy.”

“No, I guess he's run off to the big city to get rich. He always was a greedy one, always wanting more than he had. It's going to be hard on his Ma though.”

Thomas turned away from the place where the pool had been and started for home. “I'll make sure she has what she needs,” he said.

“Aye. We all will,” said John.

* * *

When the men were gone, the two bog-goblins slipped silently back into the now dark and hidden pool. They were not too distressed at their failure. The terrible goblin hag, who squatted amidst her glamour-spelled trinkets in the stinking slime at the bottom of the pool, sharpening her teeth on the finger bone of a man, would not be angry this time. She was not so hungry now. After all, she had eaten very well just two nights ago.

The End

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