And sometimes Zito, Almon the Fisherman's dog, could read his master's mind. That dog could guess what his master's thoughts were even before he began thinking them: He would suddenly get up from where he was lying in front of the stove, cross the room, and stand resolutely at the door less than half a minute before Almon looked at the clock and decided it was time to go out to the riverbank. Or that dog would lick Almon's cheek with his warm tongue, lick it with love and compassion to comfort him when a sad thought was just about to settle in his brain.
Despite all the years that had passed since that night, the old fisherman had not been able to reconcile himself to the dog's disappearance: after all, they'd been connected to each other by a love filled with tenderness and care and trust. Was it possible that the dog had suddenly forgotten his master? Or perhaps something terrible had happened to him? For if Zito were alive, he would surely have escaped from whoever had kidnapped him and made his way home. Sometimes Almon thought that he could hear the muted echo of a thin howl calling to him from very far away, from the heart of the thick forest: Come, come to me, don't be afraid.
It was not only Zito who disappeared that night, but also a pair of small finches that used to sing to Almon the Fisherman from their nest of twigs on a branch that gently grazed his window whenever the wind blew. And the woodworms that used to fill Almon's sleep at night with the sound of their quiet gnawing as they ceaselessly dug their tunnels through his old furniture. Even those woodworms had been silenced forever since that night.
For many years, the fisherman had been used to falling asleep every night to the gnawing sounds those woodworms made as they munched away at the innards of his furniture in the dark. That's why, since that terrible night, he hasn't been able to fall asleep: as if the depth of the silence is mocking him from the darkness. And so, night after night, Almon the Fisherman sits at his kitchen table till midnight, remembering how once, at that hour, the forlorn cry of foxes used to filter in through the closed shutters and the yard dogs would answer the forest foxes with angry barks that would end in a howl. At those times, his beloved dog used to come and rest his warm head on Almon's lap, look up at him with an expression of deep understanding, an expression that radiated a silent glow of compassion, love, and sadness. Until Almon would say, Thank you, Zito. Enough. I'm almost over it now.
So Almon would sit, thinking alone in the night silence, missing his dog, missing the finches and fish and even the woodworms, and write and rub out words in his notebook, sometimes hearing from a distance the thin voice of Little Nimi as he ran alone from yard to yard in the dark, making whooping noises that sounded from afar like sobs. At those moments, Almon the Fisherman would begin to berate his pencil, argue loudly with the stove, or riffle the pages of his notebook to try to block out the clamor of the night and the roar of the river.
Almon wrote in his notebook that without any living creatures, even the clearest summer nights sometimes seemed overlaid with a murky fog, a fog that descended on everything and almost buried the village, the heart, and the forest under it. Summer-night-haze, Almon the Fisherman wrote in his notebook, not spongy and soft like winter-frost-vapor, but dusty, dirty, and depressing.
Since that night when Nehi the Demon took away all the creatures, pulling them along behind him to a hiding place on the mountain, the villagers lived and cultivated their orchards in silence and fear. Without a single pet, without a single farm animal. Alone. Only the river still passed through the village, rolling pebbles, broken branches, clumps of mud, in the foam of its flow. Day and night, winter and summer, that river never rested.
7
Sometimes brave woodcutters and also Danir the Roofer and his young friends would venture out to the edge of the forest, but even they didn't dare to go into the forest alone, only in groups of three or four, and always in daylight.
Never, never ever under any circumstance, parents told their children, never ever ever go out of the house after nightfall. If a child asked why, his parents would glower and say, Because the night is very dangerous. Darkness is a cruel enemy.
But every child knew.
Sometimes, at dawn, the woodcutters could see broken branches and trampled grass, and they would look at each other and shake their heads without saying a word. They knew that after nightfall, Nehi the Mountain Demon comes down from his high mountain castle and wanders in the forests that surround the village, and at midnight his shadow glides along the river, and he touches orchard fences with his fingers, passes soundlessly among the shuttered houses, through the dark yards, sails among the abandoned stables and deserted cow barns. The grass he steps on and the leaves he brushes against tremble with the whoosh of his black cloak, and only near dawn is he swallowed up in the depths of the forest, slipping away into the tangle of trees in the dark, gliding silently among the valleys, caves, and clefts, returning to his castle of horrors somewhere in the high mountains no man has ever dared to approach.
Look, the woodcutters would whisper to each other early in the morning. Look, he was right here just last night. Only five or six hours ago he passed through here without a sound, right here, where we're standing. The thought made chills run down their spines.
8
One, night Matti decided to keep the promise he'd made to Maya. But he didn't have the courage to get dressed, sneak outside, and walk to the small grove near the ruins. Instead, Matti waited patiently until his parents and sisters were asleep, got out of bed, and slipped barefoot to the kitchen window that looked diagonally out on to the grove, and stood there, awake and sharp-eyed, till morning. He was able to count the silhouettes of nine trees at the foot of the ruined house. There were nine trees all night, and when the sun began to rise, there were still nine, so Matti decided that Maya must have been so frightened or jumpy that she had made a mistake. Or maybe she just fell asleep and had a dream.
But in class the next day, when he told her in a whisper, Maya said, Come on, Matti, let's go after school and count how many trees are really there. And they went to the slope where the ruins were and counted carefully, touching each and every tree and saying its number out loud, and there were only eight, not nine.
In class, on either side of the blackboard, between the windows, and over the bookcase, Emanuella the Teacher had hung warning signs in black and red: THE FOREST IS DANGEROUS. BEWARE OF THE MOUNTAINS. EVERY BUSH COULD BE PLOTTING TO TRAP YOU. EVERY ROCK MIGHT BE HIDING SOMETHING THAT IS NOT A ROCK BEHIND IT. A CHILD WHO WANDERS DOWN TO THE VALLEYS ALONE MIGHT NEVER COME BACK, OR HE MIGHT HAVE WHOOPITIS IF HE DOES. THE DARKNESS HATES US. THE OUTDOORS IS FILLED WITH DANGERS.
From the depth of the woods, from the heart of the thick pine forests that completely surrounded the village, a hushed wind of darkness blew from morning till night. Even in the summer months, a dark wind shadow seeped into the village from the forests. And the river, frothing, bubbling, wound through the yards and rushed into the valley, white foam on its banks, as if racing as fast as it could to get far away, yet lingering there for a moment to curse the whole village.