Free The Stone Giant by James P. Blaylock

thought of leaving Twombly Town for a dozen reasons. And here he was being
chased
out, or at least it seemed so, and chased out hungry to top it off. When he finally began to consider it, it made little sense. It was every bit as possible that he was being chased
into
something. That was the result of all the chasing, anyway. The witches had done a first-rate job of frightening him off, but where had he fled? – straight down the river in the wake of the dwarf and the old woman, or Leta, or both, or all three. It had become a confused mess.
    Something in him couldn’t believe that Leta was a witch, that she and the old blind woman were one and the same. But what he’d seen through the window rather argued in that direction. It might quite likely be vanity, he thought, that explained his doubts. He’d obviously rather believe that he hadn’t been the victim of a hoax, that Leta’s rare but wpnderful attentions had been genuine.
    He carried with him a thrown-together bundle of clothes and supplies, bought with a bit of the house money. He’d given his Smithers books to the Professor. Escargot had come across him early in the morning in town. He’d been downriver, the Professor had, collecting waterweeds for his aquaria, and had discovered clumps of homunculus grass in a little backwater two miles below the village. Not a lot of it, to be sure, but some half dozen of the sprouts had gone to seed, and through the papery walls of the seed pods could be seen the first vague outlines of polywog-like henny-penny men. Wurzle had gathered enough to study, and then, on the road, had bumped into a curious dwarf in a slouch hat. The dwarf had paid handsomely for the homunculus grass and had insisted facetiously that he intended to grind up the little men inside and smoke them in his pipe.
    Professor Wurzle displayed a bag of gold coins, which he offered to trade Escargot for the Smithers books. But Escargot was fairly sure that the coins, once removed from the bag, would be of use to no one but Stover, who might relish the exercise involved in tramping on bugs. So he gave the books to the Professor on loan, all but
The Stone Giants
, and rode away toward Hightower, feeling that the morning air was still too full of enchantment for him to sit idle. He overtook no one on the river road, and by late afternoon he joggled along, shifting from side to side on the saddle and thinking dark thoughts.
    If he rode hard enough he could be in Seaside for the harvest festival. He would find nothing there, quite likely, to solve any mysteries, but it was enough just to have a destination. He no longer had a home. That much had been made very clear to him. When he got back to Twombly Town –
if
he got back to Twombly Town –little Annie wouldn’t know who in the world he was. It had been a matter either of stealing her away or letting her go. Letting her go had been wisest. Of course it had. There was no doubting it, was there? The open road was no place for a child, a baby. And as for her becoming a creature of nature and learning to tell time by the wind, it might just as easily be true that creatures of nature were ignorant and dirty and had twigs in their hair. A child needed a school and playmates and a story before being tucked up in bed. That was the truth of it, wasn’t it?
    Or was the truth of it that Escargot didn’t entirely want her? He’d never make it to Seaside in time for the festival if Annie was riding along. And where might his travels take him after Seaside? To the Wonderful Isles? Into the White Mountains? There was business to be done –
that
was the truth of it, and Annie wouldn’t be an asset to business. Escargot wished there weren’t quite so many truths. The more there were, the more boggled up things got.
    So the idea of a destination had become solid, had become more substantial to him than the idea of his home on the hill above the village, which had, in the past weeks, already begun to change like goblin