THE PIPER

The payment

It was evening. And the house was silent. Mother had vanished, and me and my younger brothers sat around the supper table. We were having soup, again. I had experimented many times, but my culinary range was very limited.





The knock came just like last time. Three measured knocks. Pause. Three more measured knocks.





I got up, not noticing the similar pattern. I think, in my heart, I was hoping it was Mother. She always disappeared somewhere late in the afternoon, but when I woke up in the morning she was home. Maybe . . . ?





I see myself moving slowly, silently towards the door, though I know it did not take long for me to open it. But as with that one morning, time slowed. For the Piper, but no one else, time itself will bend its rules – but not by much. No one can outrun time forever.





He stood there, and he met my eyes. His face was perfectly slack, not even a hint of an expression.





“Where is my due?” His voice was flat.





I knew, even as I asked. I somehow knew. “Due? What do you mean?”





“A life for a life, child. Your Mother has her life back, and I require an equal compensation.”





My face drained of all color. It had finally come out. A life for a life . . .





“Fool! You expect what will never be given to you!” I shut the door, I slammed it, and I tried to close it to the Piper’s horrible demand.





But doors are opened far too easily. They are illusions of safety, but in the end all doors will come down . . .





The Piper did not receive his due that day. Nor the next. He demanded his payment for three days, and he demanded it from all. The adults said nothing. Their faces were slack, not even a hint of expression. And their eyes were a dark, dark black.





We refused him. For three days we refused him. And then on the fourth . . .





Mother did not get up in the morning. Her breaths were shallow and her heartbeat slow. I panicked. Ran for Thasa, the healer.





But Thasa had not gotten up either. Rebecca, Thasa’s daughter, was crying. Noah, Anne, Tat, and a small mob of other children were pleading with her to do something . . . she wailed that she didn’t know how.





They were all like this. They had gone to sleep – but they hadn’t woken up. Throughout the entire valley. And we children were the only ones spared.





For a few minutes, I caved in. I folded, letting the tears flow into the ground. I looked up, and met Tat’s eyes. I felt John, one of my younger brothers, tug on my skirts. “Maria, what’s the matter?”





John was only four. I scooped him up, brushing my tears away quickly. “Nothing, Johnny. I’m fine. We’re fine.”





Nothing could be further from the truth.