Chapter 11 - Ten Silver Coins - Book 1

A Voice and a Wheel

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Chapter 11: A Voice and a Wheel

The blue screens disappeared and were replaced by black walls. Jill waited for the little white light to flash, but it did not. Perhaps you blinked and missed it, Jill thought. It was hard to tell when her eyes were open and when they were not.

Jill felt a sudden cold draft of air against her back. She turned to see if Simon had left the door open. As she did, she saw the flat vertical wall of a valley where she expected the door to be. She was alone. It was night. She stood on what once must have been an old stream bed. Jill had no memory of the place but had a strange feeling she had visited it before.

A cold blue-white path of light was marked out in front of her by the waning moon. Jill stepped from the shadows toward the light. She was cold and shivering. As Jill stepped in the direction of the light she saw movement in the shadows around her. She stopped directly in her tracks and looked around. No movement.

She slowly moved again, toward the light and saw the same movement all around her. Jill started to walk faster, hoping to get inside the path of light where she would be able to see better, but as she moved toward the light it seemed to move away from her. When she stopped, the movement stopped; when she moved a step closer toward the light, the light seemed to move a step away.

It was strange, but it seemed to Jill that the movement she saw in the shadows was the movement of the shadows themselves, like giant black theatre curtains moving in a forward direction with a mind to envelop her, moving toward her as she moved away from them, just as the light moved away from her as she walked toward it, as though she was on some strange treadmill, walking forward, but constantly remaining in the same place. Jill’s initial fear turned quickly to frustration. She decided to stop and look up at the sky. The moon was a sliver of light, a bone-coloured rip in the fabric of the sky.   

Movement again in the dark! Jill did an about turn and looked directly into the darkness. All about her shadowy figures were moving toward her. She could not make out any of their features, but saw they had glowing, green eyes. They walked slowly toward her, metres away, whispering, growling her name, telling her to stop trying to walk away, inviting her to join them in the shadows.

Jill could feel her heart beat inside her throat. She knew that if she stepped toward the shadows, they would kill her. The creatures were within arms length of Jill now, but came no further. She could hear them breathe, the same deep-sounded purr of a sleeping cat. Jill knew she was safe on the fringes of light.

The only thing that would keep the creatures from pouncing on her was the remaining light of the moon. Jill turned and started to walk briskly again, still unable to move further in the direction she desired to go. Every step Jill made she feared the creatures would emerge from the shadows to harm her and steal the treasure she clutched near her throat. The whole time she walked, she felt like a large weight pressed down on her entire body so that her movement was slow, like she was trudging through deep snow without boots. 

Abruptly, the ground before her fell away, and Jill had somehow come to the end of the valley. It dropped off into a sharp cliff. Jill looked up at the sky. Clouds were moving quickly and would soon cover the moon. Without understanding how, Jill suddenly knew that she was in mortal danger. It was then Jill heard the voice she would never forget, neither in her dreams or in the waking world, a voice that made her body numb and the hair stand on the back of her neck. At its sound, she felt the same feeling in her stomach that she had at school when Ms. Steinback scraped her nails across the chalkboard to get the class’ attention. 

“Darkness shall swallow the moon,” the Voice said. “Swallow the moon and rule the night.” 

“Who’s there?” Jill asked, frightened. 

“Don’t worry, little girl. When that cloud covers the moon, we shall meet.”

“Who are you?” 

“I’ve followed you long in your dreams, in the darkness, always out of reach. From the time you were a young child I have searched for you, and at last have found you where he hid you, in this world. The shadow covering the past has finally caught you,” the Voice said with a laugh that was quiet and cruel. 

Jill hugged her arms around her upper body. She could sense that the Voice had moved closer. In the waning light she made out the shape of black, thinly parted lips that moved quickly with each sharply pronounced word. Behind the lips were large white teeth.

“You have something that belongs to me. I have come to take it back.”

“What could I have that belongs to you?” Jill asked, and as she did, she held the coin pouch between her hands. 

The Voice laughed again—a gritty, scraping laugh that made Jill’s stomach churn. Jill looked up at the sky. The moon was almost fully covered by the moving cloud. 

“This treasure has been entrusted to me and no one else. You will not touch it!” Jill shouted.

Jill felt courage and strength surge through her body. She stepped toward the Voice, defiantly. As she did the cloud covered the moon, and the sky went completely black. Jill stopped moving. Her heart beat very fast. Jill heard hard clicks against the ground, like a dog’s claws clicking against linoleum as it walks across a kitchen floor. The Voice was almost upon her. Suddenly Jill could hear and feel warm breath against her throat, then against the side of her cheek. Every muscle in her body tightened. 

Jill tried to scream, but could not. Cold, scaly hands pressed tightly around her neck. Blood rushed to Jill’s head as the hands squeezed around her throat. Her eyeballs bulged as Jill felt pressure swell between her temples, like she had been hanging upside down on the monkey bars at school for too long. In front of her was a pair of terrible eyes. The eyes were red in the centre, the colour of blood.

Thin white veins spread from the red irises toward the edge of the eyeballs, which glowed yellow in the night. Jill felt as if the eyes burned through her. They were acidic and vicious. 

“The treasure will be mine,” the Voice said roughly.

Jill tried to call for help, but could not. She could taste blood in her mouth. Just when Jill thought she would black out, the hands released their suffocating grip from her neck and Jill dropped to the ground. A light, bright as a full moon, shone behind her. Jill heard the Voice scream then heard the clicking sound of its claws, though much quicker now, trail away into the night. When she looked up, the Voice was gone. 

“Jill.”

Jill lay on the ground, quiet and still. Darkness once again surrounded her. She rolled toward the light, white and brilliant and warm like the sun. Eyes still closed, she sat up and slowly threw back her head, letting her body drink in the warmth of the light.

“Jill? Jill, wake up!” Jill opened her eyes. “Jill, it’s okay. It’s only a dream!”

Jill looked up at Simon, who was kneeling beside her, shaking her shoulders, shining a flashlight in her eyes. He had a concerned look on his face. “What happened?” Jill asked, holding her hand to her forehead.

“I think you’re the one who should tell me. From the looks of it, you’ve had quite a nightmare. You were walking and talking in your sleep and everything.” 

“It was so real,” she said. Jill sat up and clutched her throat. “Where is it? Where is it!” she shouted at Simon, and looked frantically around the room.

“You mean this?” Simon handed her the orange and white bag that held the coins.

“What are you doing with that?”

“Easy, Jill, no reason to shout. You handed it to me in your dream. You were muttering something about a treasure. Then you handed it to me. Your eyes were open and everything. You looked like you had seen a ghost. I couldn’t tell if you were playing a trick on me or not.”

“I wasn’t,” Jill said, trying to sound calm, but not succeeding. She snatched the bag from Simon’s hand, roughly. As she did, the bag dropped to the floor, and the coins spilled onto the ground. “Oh no!” Jill exclaimed.

Simon reached down to pick them up. “No!” Jill shouted. Simon stopped. “Don’t touch them! You can’t. They’re my coins. I’ll get them.”

“Alright Jill,” Simon said cautiously, “just settle down, you’re starting to make me nervous. You sound like my sisters all of a sudden. I can’t be around you if you’re like that, they’re mean and unreasonable and make life a real drag.”

Jill bent to the ground and started to collect the coins, counting each coin under her breath. Some of the coins were still spinning and turning in circles on the ground. She picked them up one by one and placed them in the bag. 

“Wait, I’ve only got nine! There were ten. Simon! Where’s the other one? You haven’t gone and stolen it, have you?”

“Of course not!” Simon responded. “Really, Jill, what’s gotten into you?” 

“Look! Over there. It’s rolling toward the wall.” Jill moved toward the coin, which was turned on its side, rolling in the direction of the wall where the image of an enormous Ferris wheel was projected. The wheel was larger than any structure Jill had ever seen. It spun in the middle of an amusement park that was set in a bay by the ocean. The outermost part of the Ferris wheel hung over the water.

“Don’t worry Jill,” Simon assured, “the coin will stop once it hits the wall. Take it easy, will you?”

Jill stopped and watched with Simon as the coin rolled, about to make contact with the wall. But, instead of hitting the wall, spinning on its side, and stopping on the floor as Simon expected it to, the coin kept rolling, then disappeared. “Where did it go?” Jill exclaimed.

Simon stood looking at the wall, dumbfounded. “It went into the wall,” he said in a tone of fascination. “Look, there, do you see it, it’s falling! It’s entered the scene I was playing in my imagination and it’s falling!” No sooner had Simon finished saying so, then the coin landed on one of the spinning Ferris wheel’s seats.

“Make it stop spinning, Simon. I can’t lose that coin!”

Simon turned toward the machine in the middle of the room and yelled: “Program stop!End program!” Nothing happened. He leaned closer to the machine and yelled again. Nothing. “It’s not working, Jill.”

“Oh no!” she moaned. “What do I do?”

“How important is it?” Simon asked her.

“What?”

“How important is the coin, Jill?”

Jill looked at Simon. “It’s priceless. Ah!” she screamed as the Ferris wheel continued to spin. “What do I do?”

“We have to go after it,” said Simon.

“Go after it! How?” she asked.

“Do exactly what the coin did, go up to the wall and enter the screen.”

“That’s impossible!” Jill said. Jill suddenly remembered Mr. Kay, and her experience watching him in the kitchen. “It looks like Mr. Kay couldn’t have given me a lesson too soon.” 

“We better go now, Jill. Once that coin reaches the top of the Ferris wheel, it’s going to fall into the water. Look how those seats tilt when they start to make their way down the other side of the wheel.” Simon grabbed Jill by the hand and pulled her toward the wall. “Here goes nothing,” he said.

“I don’t know how this works,” said Jill, “but we need to get onto that seat. Hurry!” With that, they both stepped toward the wall, yelling at the top of their lungs. As they did, they put their hands up to protect their faces from impact should their efforts be unsuccessful. 

They didn’t need to protect their faces. Simon and Jill suddenly found themselves clutching onto the side rails of a white Ferris wheel carriage, more than fifty feet off the ground, still yelling, but otherwise unharmed. Simon, realizing he was okay, looked around and then abruptly stopped yelling. He looked at Jill who, realizing he was no longer yelling, stopping shouting as well. 

“We did it, Jill, we’re in my imagination!”

Jill frantically looked all about the carriage. “Look Simon, we’re not in the right carriage. The coin isn’t here!” Jill looked at the other cars. “Oh no! There!”

She pointed to a carriage that was two seats below them. Jill quickly looked over her shoulder in the other direction. They were starting to make their way toward the top of the wheel! Soon they would start the descent. 

“Jill, don’t!” Simon said, reaching for her as she stepped over the rail to hang herself over the carriage.

“I have to get that coin. Seraph told me to guard it with my life.”

“Well, you might lose your life if you go after it,” Simon reasoned.

Jill ignored Simon and kept moving. She dangled her body from the rail. Her shoes hung a few feet from the roof of the carriage below. 

“Careful Jill!” Simon urged.

“Shh! I need to concentrate.” Jill steadied herself until she was hardly moving then let go of the rail. 

“Jill!” Simon shouted as she let go of the rail and dropped away from the carriage.

She landed on top of the carriage, which wobbled back and forth. Jill anticipated the movement and in a swift motion grabbed onto the end of the roof, which, thankfully, rose at the edge into a solid metal bar. Jill swung her feet over the roof and into the carriage. She looked up at Simon and smiled. He shook his head. Jill took a deep breath, grabbed onto the handrail, and started to climb over it. 

“Jill, you’d better hurry!” Simon warned.

Jill looked up. Simon, in the carriage above, would soon start his descent over the other side of the Ferris wheel. Jill steadied herself and aimed. She landed on the roof, but, in her haste, hit it much harder than she had previously landed. The carriage swung violently and Jill had to use all her strength to grab the edge of the roof just to hang on. As she did, her body slid, and dangled over the edge. She looked down past her feet and saw cement and water. She barely kept hold, the weight of her body pulling mercilessly at her fingers, which gripped the rail. 

“Jill, are you okay?” shouted Simon.

“The coin!” she yelled back.

For, as she hung from the roof, clutching onto it for dear life, she also watched the coin teeter on the edge of the carriage seat. The impact of her body against the roof had moved the coin. Jill watched, as if in slow motion, as it teetered over the brink. She kicked her leg up and got a foothold on the handrail. Once she was able to put weight on her foot, she removed one hand from its grip on the roof and grabbed the back of the seat. Jill swung inside. As she did, the carriage started to make its descent over the water. Jill lunged for the coin as it fell toward the metal floor grate. 

She was too late. Before she could catch it, the coin slipped through the floor grate, hit the back of the carriage below it, and spun in an arc toward the water. Jill let out a cry as she watched the coin hit the surface of the ocean with a small splash and then disappear. She pressed her forehead against the handrail and looked vacantly at the water below. 

“Well Jill, you’ve done it. You’ve gone and done the one thing the Keeper insisted you do not do. It’s hardly been twenty-four hours and you’ve lost a coin,” she said to herself. Jill lightly banged her head against the rail a few times. Then she sat up. She kneaded her knees with her hands and looked up at the sky. She shook her head in disbelief. “And, you got your wish. Somehow you’ve entered the world of imagination. Now the question is, how are you going to get yourself out?”

© 2024 Andrew Kooman. All rights reserved.

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About Andrew Kooman

Andrew Kooman is a Canadian writer of fiction, poetry, plays, and films. His work has been enjoyed by audiences around the world and translated into lots of different languages. 

He’s the author of the children’s books Popcorn Helmet and Simple Christmas Spectacular, the first two books in the Ramsey P. Heaton, Future Billionaire series. Andrew likes to make people laugh in church. His popular plays and skits are performed across North America and can be purchased at SkitGuys.com.

Andrew founded UnveilTV with his brothers Matthew and Daniel, where you can watch content that inspires you. You can follow all of Andrew’s latest work on his weekly newsletter Things I Wrote Down and find him on X and Instagram.