Chapter 2 - A Shoe is found and lost again

Barney wasn’t sure where he was going. He spent much of his time sitting on rocks, carefully calculating distances, planning his path through the fields so he was as far as possible from any trees. He filled his pockets with stones, ringed his hat with them, put them in his pack. It made going slow, and his neck hurt from the weight of his hat, but it was necessary. He could feel the woodmen following him. They hid in shadows and lurked just out of sight, waiting. Every night they crept a little closer, pressing in on the barrier the rocks created. Sometimes he thought he saw the trees at the edges of the field closing in, and he gripped the smooth white stone he always held more tightly.

One day, as he spread his blanket in the field and set about creating a ring of stones around it, he noticed a glint in the grass. This was odd, because he had carefully planned his path this morning to avoid all trees, products derived from them, and humans. The first two were for obvious reasons. He avoided people not because he didn’t like people – he had always had a deep longing for companionship – but rather because farmers these days don’t take as kindly to young men on a journey through their fields as they did in the old days, and often carried shotguns. According to his carefully planned route, he was several hours from the nearest house. So deep in the hills, in fact, that he had not seen a sign of life, a sheep, a distant building, a gate, since the escaped sheep he had glimpsed in the distance the day before. So it was strange that there was something glittering in the grass in the middle of his circle. He pushed the long grass to the side to reveal the glittering object. A shoe.

This was no ordinary shoe. It was like nothing Barney had seen. The light of the setting sun caught it, making rainbows in the glass. It sparkled and gleamed, casting the light onto him, making his skin rosy. Barney knelt beside it. It was a woman’s shoe, small, delicate, high-heeled, and totally impractical. And clean. That was the perplexing part. How had a shoe this lovely, an elegant evening shoe, come to be lying in a field so far from anywhere, without getting dirty. He reached down to touch it, and for the first time since he had left the quarry, he put down his white stone.

That night Barney slept with the shoe in his hand. He did not like to let it go, in case it disappeared. It seemed to him it must be a magic shoe. All magic things were sparkly, everyone knew that. But did it work the other way around? Were all sparkly things magic? Barney wasn’t sure, but he decided to keep it, just in case. He carried it with him all the next day. He tried rubbing it and wishing the woodmen away. When that didn’t work, he aimed smaller, wishing his eyes were not crossed. He couldn’t tell whether or not that worked, not having a mirror, so he wished for some food. Closing his eyes, he counted to 10. When he opened them, his food bag was still empty. He glared at the shoe. And set up his ring for the night.

The next day, Barney realised the magic shoe had distracted him from his purpose, and he had lost his way, circling aimlessly, dangerously near the forest. The woodmen became more active near the trees. He could hear them chattering, sniggering with glee as the forest came into sight. The shoe was evil, he realised. He threw it as far as he could. Which wasn’t very far, him being rather small and weighed down by rocks. And there it lay, gleaming arrogantly at the edge of the forest. He turned and angrily marched out of danger.

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