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Tobias had his hands behind his back. He stretched up and looked at each council member, slowly. They all waited. The room was in complete silence as they all wanted to know what was going on. Why had their head of council called them today?

“My peers,” he started. Then turned to look at everyone who was sitting on the benches. The whole village was pretty much squeezed in, and overflowing by the doors, trying to hear and see what was going on. “My friends. I have called this meeting because it was just a few days ago that a little girl said something that caught my attention.”

There was a slight mumble as they tried to work out who the girl was. Even those who had been in the hall with Keira had already forgotten that she had been there.

“Who it was doesn’t matter,” Tobias carried on. “The point is, she spoke about bravery. Bravery against the monster that lives beyond the waterfall.”

Another murmur waved through the crowd.

“I remember the girl,” Carl said, leaning forward. “You told her the monster does what it does, Tobias. Or something to that effect.”

“And that would be correct…” Tobias said, pointing upwards. Then he shook his finger and shook his head. “Except Carl, that it is not.”

The audience exchanged looks.

“The thing is, we have always said that, and we have always said that, because when we did have warriors in this town, they did go up and we never saw them again. Then we had warriors from other towns. And THEY went up, and we never saw them again. Then we started to get people who had a more curious mind than an aggressive one. Scholars… Researchers… some of them are still here among us… but some also went up.”

Tobias paused. He looked around the room and pressed his lips together.

“And they…” he paused again. “They did not come down.”

He strode to the side of the hall with the stained windows.

“The fact is, it doesn’t seem to matter at all who goes up to find the monster. Warriors. Fighters. Men of intellect. Ordinary men. They never come down.”

“Well, we know all that,” Carl chuckled, scratching his chin. “Which is why, as you said, the monster does what it does. We do not intervene.”

“But maybe we shouldn’t,” Tobias said, turning around quickly to look at Carl directly. “Why is it that we stay here, when that… that murderer is there?”

“Tobias…” Carl said, putting his hands up.

“Why is it that we do nothing but accept that the monster does what it does? What it will. When, Carl… When did you, and I and everyone else in this room, become a slave to the creature that shows no mercy? That takes men, women, and children to its lair?”

“It takes who it takes,” Carl replied, flatly, keeping his emotions in check.

“And is that OK?”

Carl shrugged.

“I understand.” Tobias nodded and then turned to the others at the head of the room. “Some of you have not been affected as much as some others. Some of you haven’t been affected at all.”

“What happened to Gideon…” Carl started.

“What happened to Gideon is IRRELEVANT!” Tobias shouted. The room came to a stop. Never had anyone heard Tobias yell, not even when his son was small and full of mischief. Not when one of the men got so drunk and almost burned the town down. Not once.

Tobias straightened his sleeves, then placed his hands back behind him.

“I have lost a son, Gideon yes. The little girl who was here lost two brothers. One of them was a friend to my son. A few days before the monster came, my son and that brother, Chris, had a fight. Anna, you lost a husband, yes?”

The whole room turned to Anna, who was sitting next to Carl. Her eyes went wide and her face pale.

“Ummm,” she said. “Yes. My husband, George, was taken one year. The year before your son.”

“And did my son know George?”

Anna looked around. She wasn’t sure where this was going, but she had an inkling, and she didn’t like it.

“Yes. My husband knew your son.”

“And what happened just two moons before your husband was taken?”

Anna’s mouth slackened open. She shut it. Her eyes pleaded with the others to answer for her, but they all just stared.

“There… Gideon pulled a practical joke. You son, filled the council chair pillow with the pig’s… with the pig’s…”

“With the pig’s turd,” Tobias finished.

His back was to Anna, and he was staring out at the crowd. Not all were privileged to this story, and he could see who knew and who didn’t.

“And when he stood up to say the verse, what happened?” he asked.

Anna looked down.

“They laughed,” she said quietly.

“Who did?”

“Everyone. Everyone in the hall laughed at George, because it looked like he… like he had an accident.”

“He was disgraced.”

Anna nodded.

“And my son caused that.”

Anna looked up, with tears in the corner of her eyes, and nodded.

“I don’t blame you…” she muttered. “I know boys will be…”

“Anna, stop,” Tobias interrupted. “What Gideon did is done. And George’s anger is done. And it’s all in the past. But that is not to say it didn’t happen. Is it true that at the moment that George was taken, George did not have a high view of Gideon?”

“No. No, he did not.”

“And is it true that George blamed Gideon for the nickname he had gotten after that incident, which was Council Turd Pants?”

“Yes.”

“And then, two and a half years later, the monster came back and took my son, correct?”

There was a pause. Anna looked up at Tobias, with her eyebrows scrunched up.

“You don’t think that George had anything to do with Gideon’s death?”

“Answer the question, Anna.”

Anna looked around.

“Yes, the monster came for Gideon after it took my husband.”

“And then two and a half years later, the monster came for Chris. A boy that Gideon had a fight with. And then two years after that, the monster came for Babby. Keira’s small brother.”

“If you are implying that the monster comes for the one that the first one hated, then that’s where your theory comes to a halt,” Carl interrupted. “Why would Chris have anything against his baby brother?”

“Ah,” Tobias said, turning to Carl. “I see you don’t know the family well. But perhaps you might remember, as you’re the local Doctor, Carl, a woman called Molly?”

Carl flinched at the name.

“The mom,” he whispered.

“The mom, who died when Babby was born. And so who, do you think, a teenage boy would blame and hate in this world? Hmmm? How about the baby that killed his mom?”

“It was an ACCIDENT,” Anna shouted. “Surely the boy wouldn’t blame a wee babe for that?”

“Wouldn’t he?” Tobias said, turning to her. “And who would have told him that, HIS FATHER?”

The room went quiet. Nobody moved in the silence. Nobody even shifted, or itched, or scratched.

“No,” Tobias said, turning around. He walked the full circle of light that came in from the stained glass window. The light’s shades of pink, yellow, and blue glided across his body and face as he moved.

“Nobody told him anything. He was just made to figure things out, while looking after his little sister. And looking after a baby. A baby that took the only adult he had ever known and who had ever loved him, away from him.”

“If what you say is true, Tobias,” said another man, who was sitting on the edge of the group. A man who, this entire time, had been listening. “Then the monster wouldn’t have anyone to hate right now. Who could a toddler hate?”

Tobias turned to look at the man. His face turned stern as he stepped out of the stained-glass circle of light and into the shade.

“I would imagine, Johnathan, the village that let him and his sister starve on the street.”

The room exploded into conversation.