CHAPTER 1

Zeke

	Zeke was crazy; everyone in Apple Grove knew that.  Some thought he'd gone senile.  Some thought he'd rotted his brain on too much tainted wine, or that he must have banged his head.  There was a rumour that he'd been kicked by one of old Mr. Underwood's horses.  Of course, no one could say for sure.  Zeke had been as crazy as a jackel for as long as anyone could remember.  Some said it was a shame.  Some said he must have deserved it.  Many wished he'd just go away.

	He was a bum.  He looked and dressed and smelled like a bum.  His long grey hair was always tangled and dirty.  Half the time there were small twigs or leaves hanging out of it from when he had slept on the ground.  His beard was long and coarse.  Only God would know what things lurked in there.  His face and hands were as filthy as the muddy bottom of the Sandywyne River.  His nails were long and thick, almost like claws.  For all intents and purposes, he looked like he'd never taken a bath or groomed himself in his life.

	His clothes were rags.  His trousers and tunik were far too large for him, the former staying up only because of a frayed piece of rope tied around his waist.  Even in warm weather, he insisted on wearing the same dirty, tattered cloak that was filled with moth holes.  And around each foot, he had wrapped old cloth; he had no shoes.  

	No one really knew how old he was.  But no one, not even the oldest members of Apple Grove, could ever remember Zeke as having been anything but ancient.  His hair and beard had always been grey.  The skin of his face had always been dark and lined like leather that had burnt and cracked in the hot summer sun.  And he'd always been crazy.  Totally crazy, with dark eyes that always seemed to be watching... something.  As he passed through town, he walked slowly, always looking around him, side to side, up and down, as if he was looking for something; perhaps something he'd lost.  He hobbled along the main street seemlingly oblivious to the fact that people were around him.  Instead, he would suddenly stop, right in the middle of the road.  Horses would have to be steered around him, as he kneeled down onto the muddy ground to pick up a rock.  Then he'd listen to it.  He'd hold it right up to his ear and listen to it.  This would go on for several minutes.  Finally he'd place it back, always in exactly, exactly the same spot.  Then he'd continue on down the road, until another rock or clump of dirt interested him, and again he'd pick it up and listen. 

	Sometimes he'd stop to look up into a tree where a bird was singing.  Admittedly, other people would do this too. But a normal person would move on within a minute.  Not Zeke.  He'd stand there, looking right at the bird.  He'd watch it, as if all the rest of the world didn't exist.  And he wouldn't move away until the bird had completely stopped singing or had flown away.  Sometimes this would take half an hour or more.  He'd just stand there, nodding his head at the bird.  When the bird paused, Zeke would whistle at it, as if talking back.  Then the bird would resume its song, and again the old man would listen.

	For some reason (some people said it was because of his smell) the village animals would flock to him.  Dogs, cats, squirrels, goats; you name it.  He would always pull out some tidbits from his baggy pockets to feed them.  Where he got these tidbits, no one knew.  They didn't know how he fed himself.  And, of course, he seemed to talk to these dogs and cats and whatever; further evidence, some said, that he was completely mad.  He would meow at the cats, and bark, howl and yip at the dogs.  He would chortle at the squirrels, baa at the goats. If you didn't know better you'd swear that they answered back.  An old rumour had it that when Zeke returned to the forest (and he always left town through the forest, not along the road), there always would be a party of animals waiting for him: deers, raccoons, squirrels, an occasional bear; like loyal subjects awaiting their king.

	Rumours are just rumours.  Still, the kids called old Zeke `the king of the forest'.  They meant to be cruel by this.  Many would laugh at him and throw stones as he walked through town.  None of them was brave enough to actually hit him with a rock.

	"Hey! There goes the king of the forest," taunted some of the older boys.

	He seemed to pay no attention.  

	"Where's your queen?  Is she hibernating?" they'd squeal.

	Sometimes he'd acknowledge their presence, but he'd only nod his head or smile.  

	"Or is she just scratching her fleas?"

	Very rarely he'd look right at them and bark like an angry dog.  Usually, this was all he needed to do to make these boys scream and run away.  

	Most people in town had come to realize that this senile old man was pretty harmless.  Still, he made many folks quite uncomfortable.  At times he'd seemingly look right through people, as if he could see into their inner soul.  His intense stare made almost everyone wince.  Most people avoided him as much as possible.  As he passed, parents would gather up their children and move to the other side of the road.  Children were instructed to keep their distance from him.  I mean, you never know what critters lived in his beard and clothes.  And you just never know what a crazy man might do. 

	 Now, every town had a priest.  And, over the years, several attempts had been made by the people of Apple Grove to convince their priest that Zeke should be reported to the higher authorities and locked up or sent away.  Nothing had ever come of this.  Zeke was, after all, just a senile old man, the priests had said.  He usually wasn't around more than a day or two at a time (a week at the most).  Mostly, he just disappeared into the forest for months at a time. No one ever knew where he went.  Few cared.  "What possible harm can he cause?" each priest had said. 

	Over the years, many priests had come and gone in the little village.  One interesting thing that they all had in common was a profound tolerance of the strange old man.  In turn, Zeke, for all he seemed to be totally oblivious to most people around him, had always been amazingly attentive and respectful of the priests.  As he passed them along the road, he would always stop and bow deeply.  They would bow in return.  And then each would continue on his way, usually without words.  Father John, now semi-retired and living at the monestary in Woodbridge, had even made it quite clear that he actually liked the old man.  

	"Come now, Mrs. Fuzzlewup," he'd say calmly.  "I'm quite sure old Zeke isn't the devil."

	"But he barks like a dog!" she'd plead.  "And he talks to rocks!"

	"Maybe he's just... confused."

	"But he smells like a..."

	"Come, come, Mrs. Fuzzlewup."

	The old priest would even sometimes visit Zeke in the evening where he slept under Cutter's Bridge.  He'd bring food.  But Zeke, to anyone's knowledge, had never been inside any home in Apple Grove, not even Father John's.  Some thought he might not have been in any home anywhere.

	Since the elder priest's retirement, the new village pastor had been Brother Thomas, on his first assignment from monastery.  Brother Thomas was young.  He was not nearly as unflappable as Father John had been.  He often forgot his place when reading prayers from the pulpit.  One time he stood before the congregation with his robe on backwards.  When finally he realized why people were snickering, he became as flustered as a butterfly in a box.  By the time the service was over, he'd knocked over two plants and broken one holy cup.  

	But, like his elder, Brother Thomas seemed sincere and well meaning.  The village people liked him.  But apparently, he too had been seen visiting Zeke at Cutter's Bridge.  As Father John's visits had, this caused a lot of discontented chatter in the town.  Many dropped hints about the wisdom of the young priest with regards to the old man.  To them, it seemed like encouraging the wrong element.  Some thought it scandalous that any priest would have anything to do with such a tramp.  But, beyond hints and whispers, none of the village folk ever openly questioned anything any priest would do.  People just kept waiting.  Waiting and hoping for Zeke to disappear into the forest and never return.

	A few people (a very few people) felt sorry for him. How could he live like that?  How did he possibly survive the winters?  What with holes in his clothes, and mere rags on his feet.  Living outside through the snow season, it was a wonder he never got buried alive.  Where did he go?  How did he find shelter in the winter?  What did he eat?  Some wondered what tragic turn of events had ever happened in his life to leave Zeke so alone and so crazy.  Maybe he'd been beaten as a child.  Maybe his wife had died, and his grief had reduced him to this.  Maybe God was punishing him for some terrible deed he'd committed.  Many speculated.  No one knew. 

	One who had put her sense of pity to action was the widow woman who lived near Green Meadow.  As long as the girl could remember, Miriam, her adopted daughter, had watched Nanna put a hot bowl of soup or stew and some bread out by the shed each evening for this strange vagabond.  Some mornings the contents would have disappeared.  Nanna knew it had been Zeke who'd come, rather than some animal, because he always left a small pile of beautiful stones on the tree stump next to the empty bowl, and because there always would be a few left over bread crumbs scattered nearby for the birds.  

	But most days, and sometimes for months on end, the bowl would remain untouched.  Nanna would merely feed the uneaten meal to her dogs for their breakfast, and would be sure to leave another bowl out that next evening.  Miriam had often been amazed that no other animal had ever come in the night to feast on Zeke's meal.  It was if they all knew and respected that it had been left for Zeke.

	Miriam also wondered what it was that made Nanna so concerned about this total stranger.  When the weather was bad, especially cold, rainy or snowy, the widow would stand by the window, silently staring out into the night as if standing vigil.  Her two dogs would often sit attentively by her side.  They also seemed to be watching and waiting.

	"What are you watching for, Nanna?"  Miriam sometimes asked her.

 	"Oh... nothing," the older woman would sigh, responding to the young girl's question. "I just hope the old man has found some shelter for the night."

	Nanna would look at Miriam with a deep sadness in her eyes.  It was a haunting sadness, made ever more so by a quiet beauty that shimmered in her face, like lace curtains  on a frosty winter window.  Miriam did not know how old Nanna was, but she often thought that she was younger than her weary eyes made her out to be.  She had never wanted to ask, perhaps not wanting to know the answer.  In her mind, Nanna would be young forever.  She dreaded the thought that she might ever grow old and die.  Miriam had no one else in the world.

	"Why do you do that?"  Miriam had asked her, on more than one occasion, after Nanna had come inside from having left Zeke a meal.

	“Do what?” Nanna had responded asshe returned to the kitchen.

	“Leave the old man food every night,” Miriam said.

"Oh, I don't know," Nanna said.  "I guess we all need someone to look after us."

	Miriam herself had been taken in by Nanna and her husband as a baby.  Nanna's husband had since died, leaving the widow alone to raise the child. She and Ben had never had children of their own, though they had wanted them. 

	"Not everything happens as you planned it," she would say.  "What's important is that you don't lose hope.  Sometimes, even when you least expect it, things work out."

	Miriam wondered if Nanna had started to lose hope that Zeke would ever return from his most recent disappearance.  More than four months ago, he had vanished into the forest.  Though he had been gone for as long as 4 months on a few prior occasions, never had this occurred during the winter.  In colder months, the old man tended to stay closer to home.  But not this year.  He hadn't been seen since before Harvest Day, and now the new year was almost three months old.  Many in the village had speculated that he must be dead.  Maybe a bear had eaten him.   

	Miriam had started to fear the worst. Though she too had once been afraid of him, she had come to realize that he really was harmless.  Nanna had assured her that many times.  

	"Just because you're different doesn't make you evil," she had said.

	Miriam knew that Zeke in the past often had spent his mornings in the small woods just behind their cottage.  Sometimes, she knew he was watching her when she went to the stream to fetch water for breakfast.  If she looked straight at him, he just nodded his head and smiled.  She no longer felt threatened.  Any concern she'd had about him evaporated that day three years ago, when she stumbled and broke her ankle.  Without a word, Zeke appeared from the woods and carried her back to Nanna.  Even as she shivered with pain, she marveled at how gently this disheveled old man had carried her, and with what ease.  His face seemed as calm as if he was carrying a baby in his arms.  And the look in his eyes was strangely of love and concern.  Miriam would never forget that day, that look.

	Now that she hadn't seen him in four months, she had come to miss his presence in their back woods.  One day she spoke to Nanna about her fears.  The widow woman assured her he'd be back.  And still Nanna put out a bowl of stew and some bread every evening.  But Miriam could see that even Nanna was starting to doubt that the old man was ever coming back.  A few times, Miriam had slipped out of bed late at night to find her aunt standing at the kitchen window looking out at the shed.   

	Miriam could barely remember her adopted father; she was but six years old when Ben died suddenly.  She remembered how Nanna and she had found him, lying on the cold ground in the back yard.

	"Run inside, Child," Nanna had told her.  Miriam could still remember the worried look in Nanna's face, as she kneeled at her husband's lifeless body.  Miriam remembered how strong a man Ben had seemed to be, even lying there motionless.  She could never understand how someone with so much strength could die.

	Nanna was a small woman, some would say frail.  But she had an inner strength that Miriam would always admire.  She always seemed so calm, even when everyone else was in a panic.  And though she spoke little, what she said was always worth remembering. 

	Miriam truly loved Nanna, and often felt so fortunate that she'd been found and brought here. 

	"How did you find me?" she asked Nanna one evening, as the two women cleared dishes from the supper table. Though now sixteen, Miriam had never had the courage to ask this question before. 

	"What makes you ask that now?" Nanna returned, not looking up from her work.

	"I've wondered for so long," Miriam replied. "Please won't you tell me how you and Ben found me."

	Nanna paused a moment, and then looked up at Miriam.

	"We didn't," she answered.

	"Then how'd I get here?" Miriam persisted.  Suddenly, this had become very important to the young girl.

	Nanna smiled sadly.  "The truth is… Zeke brought you here."