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The moon had seemed extremely bright earlier that night, hanging outside Dish’s window as he tried to force himself asleep. Restless after the two-week long festival, Dish found slumber slow in coming, and the silver cascade streaming across his wall and up the length of his cot tortured him with the possibilities of adventure he and his friends were forgoing.
Now, as he hustled through one of Moon’s Thresh skinny alley ways that twisted through the houses and shops, he worried that in the dark shadows he would trip on a gutter or crash into one of the low hanging eaves that jutted out in seemingly random directions. He knew the backstreets better than most anyone, but he had never before raced through them with such a rush of anxiety.
The commotion had awoken Dish first, and he went to the window of the bedroom he shared with his father to discover the source. Initially, he hoped for some end of festival frivolity that he could join, but the strident shouts from so many voices, a few he recognized and others clad in strange accents, quickly warned him something was amiss in the village. A sudden boom of thunder, certainly not natural, woke his father with a start.
“What’s going on?” the old man asked, a trace of fear in his voice.
“I don’t know. It sounds like the village is being attacked. I’m going out to see what it is.”
“No you’re not,” his father countermanded, as he quickly hopped out of bed. Stay here. I’ll check to see what’s happening. Maybe someone secretly got hold of some lightning crackers.” He mumbled to himself, a common habit, as he pulled on his tunic and fumbled through his key rings. “I’ll be right back.”
“It didn’t sound like crackers.”
“Stay here,” his father repeated, as his head disappeared from view.
His father climbed down the ladder to their shop, and flicked a match for the lantern. Dish could hear him playing with the locks at the front door. Knowing his father, he was actually checking to make sure they were secure rather than opening them.
Whatever was happening, the tumult was growing louder. Not waiting for his father to return, Dish quickly dressed and grabbed his belt and knapsack. In less than a minute, he was propping open the window and climbing out onto the roof. The village of Moon’s Thresh, nestled tightly as it was against Thresh Mountain, fit a lot of homes into a small amount of space. Its compactness meant that Dish could travel the entire breadth of the village without setting foot on the ground, and tonight was not the first time he had crept along the rooftops.
Near the village gate, he could see one of the roofs had caught fire. The shouts were louder up here, and he thought he heard Cal’s father shouting commands, but the actual words were lost as they bounced through the narrow lanes and off the rooftops before reaching Dish’s perch. His first instinct was to run down and have a look, until he thought of his friends. They would be waiting at the cave. How many times over the years had they played at defending the village from midnight intruders?
He turned his back on the flames and scrambled over his roof and down into the narrow alley that ran behind the shops on Hill Street. First, he would find Cal and Dusty, and together they could come up with a plan.
Tonight, their games were turning real.