It Is Said (Mathias Bootmaker and the Keepers of the Sandbox) Read Online Free PDF Page B

end?”
    “All of them are ever changing treasures. They begin at the beginning and they end when the very end comes. Beyond that we cannot see,” she said. “I hear them. I bind them, Louie minds them and Albert brings them where and when they’re needed. Eventually everyone’s story makes it to our cart.”
    Mathias heard Louie clear his throat quietly.
    “There is nothing like a well lived, well written life story, young man,” the elder woman said, as she opened a cabinet beneath the cart.
    Louie cleared his throat again. This time he was a little louder.
    “Every life story is different,” she continued as she pulled out and opened a bright red blanket with a shiny silver border. “Every life story is at times, the same.”
    Valentino was throwing the blanket over Albert’s back when Louie coughed, yet again. Loudly. Mathias turned to face the rabbit and he found the rabbit already staring back at him. Intently.
    “Every great story must have twists and turns. Every great life story must have those and much more,” the elder continued as she adjusted the blanket on the donkey.
    The man versus bunny stare down continued. It was broken only when Mathias noticed Louie’s left ear begin to bend in the middle. It kept bending until it crossed his right. The rabbit then tilted his head in the direction his ear was pointing.
    “A person’s book should be a puzzle inside of a maze,” she said as she crossed in front of Albert in order to adjust the blanket on the opposite side. “There should be mysteries and clues. Signs moving you forward. Blind turns turning you back.”
    Mathias was following the directions being given by Louie’s ear. He carefully scanned each book, every spine, as he went. Each had a different little image embossed onto it. Little characters and symbols gave a tiny clue to the books content.
    Then he found what the rabbit wanted him to find.
    “A good story is in the character of the person on which it is based,” Mathias could hear the elder woman saying. “The choices that person makes should drive the lessons learned, and move the story forward.”
    Mathias was gazing at a white leather bound volume. The spine was interrupted by two horizontal ridges equally spaced apart. In the center section of the three that the two lines made, was the image of a golden mouse. He grasped the book and pulled. It slid out easily.
    “A life well lived makes for a great book,” she shouted over the donkey’s back. “One must not be afraid to live!”
    She was shouting to be heard but Mathias was far away. On the cover of the book was an image in an oval frame. It was the mouse again. It was standing on the wooden floor of the circular hall of doors in his dream. He was bowing before Mathias. Just like he had done in his dream. Eight words were written beneath the frame.
     

    Mathias Bootmaker and The Keepers of The Sandbox
     

    Mathias ran his hand over the cover. He could feel the texture of the cover. He could feel the weight of the book. It all seemed very real. He tried to open it. The book would have none of that.
    “Don’t even bother boy,” Valentino said. “No one can just read their own story.”
    The bookbinder was standing right next to Mathias. He was a tall man now, dressed in all the splendor of a circus ringmaster. From the top hat and tails and the gleaming black boots, to all the red and gold and black of the fabrics. Valentino was now all show.
    “Do you know my story?” Mathias asked.
    Valentino took off his top hat and held it in the crook of his arm.
    “Yes, I do,” he said. “We all do. Every person in Sandbox Harbor knows your name and the man you are.”
    “Tell me about my story,” Mathias requested of the ringmaster.
    “No one would ever reveal the twists and turns of a good story. What fun is there in that?”
    “Do you know how it ends?” he tried.
    “I know how part of it ends,” was all Valentino would say about that. “A life is an amazing gift.