Haley Cork and the Blue Door
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Haley Cork and the Blue Door
When a war-ending blast incinerates Haley Cork’s father half a world away, she becomes the only one who can get justice for the billions of dead, and must use the powers of the mysterious Blue Door to find and imprison those responsible.
Science Fantasy: 110,000 words
Most of the world’s fighting men are gone and their widows left behind as prey to corrupt noblemen. The Blue Door called Haley to do more than avenge their deaths — it selected her to become the latest member of a race of immortals called Keepers. Her dark red hair and amber eyes already set her apart from her own community, but the Blue Door intends to take away her very humanity as it pursues its own hidden agenda. Every answer leads to more questions: Who detonated the bomb? What exactly is the Blue Door? Why has the Blue Door chosen a little girl to combat an Enemy who devours entire worlds? Who are these mysterious Keepers? Most adolescent girls are ill equipped to investigate the mystery behind the terrible bombing. Not many girls are like Haley Cork, who changes in unexpected ways on her path to destiny.
Haley Cork's World of Frija Five
If you like cats, dragons, and girls who can step between worlds then this book is for you. If you like weak, prissy girls then it isn’t. Haley is strong, determined, and full of a desire to bring justice straight into the enemy’s camp. She is fearless but not foolish. By the end of the book, Haley’s universe will have you begging for more. — Marsha Blaine
This a fantasy adventure you don’t want to miss. Haley Cork is tough! She’s the sort of person who can dish it out and then ask for more. Though she is just a little kid, that doesn’t stop her from setting right some humongous wrongs. The story of the Chithtuk alone is worth the read. — Piers Braxton
Run!
One foot hopping,
One foot go,
Through the muddy bog below.
Run if you can,
Run if you might,
Or turn on the hunters and fight.
One eye watching,
One eye blind,
Keep pitfall and ambush to mind.
Run if you can,
Run if you may,
The hunters will catch you today.
One ear deaf,
One ear hears,
Silence your breath and your tears.
Run if you can,
Run in the mud,
The hunters are coming for blood.
One house empty,
One house bright,
Safety appears in the night.
Run if you can,
Run in the door,
The butcher is waiting for more.
One foot hopping,
One foot go,
Through the muddy bog below.
Run if you can,
Run if you might,
Or turn on the hunters and fight.
One eye watching,
One eye blind,
Keep pitfall and ambush to mind.
Run if you can,
Run if you may,
The hunters will catch you today.
One ear deaf,
One ear hears,
Silence your breath and your tears.
Run if you can,
Run in the mud,
The hunters are coming for blood.
One house empty,
One house bright,
Safety appears in the night.
Run if you can,
Run in the door,
The butcher is waiting for more.
Lily, Chrysanthemum, Rose
The edges are soft and the shadows gone,
Pure light capturing the essence of beauty,
Flaxen hair cascading down delicate shoulders,
Embracing unconfined glory.
Lily, chrysanthemum, rose,
Picket on the ivy hedged wall,
A scene with a spirit enclosed.
The cherry petals fall in spiraling whorls,
Dashed down with innocent laughter,
A book forgotten on a stone bench,
For a muse of a painter enthralled.
Lily, chrysanthemum, rose,
Guardians of the narrow gateway,
Neglecting their duties in the shade.
The laughter stops to the crack,
A gun in hand, a husband stands confused,
To shouts and cries of beauty swept away,
Of an artist and wife lost to misplaced jealousy.
Lily, chrysanthemum, rose,
Pall bearers walking in stoic silence,
The edges turned hard and shadows dark.
Autumn Outing
Grandfather and grandson walk together.
Mother carries a red basket.
She smiles in the chilly autumn sun.
To row, to row, to the island on the lake.
Blanket on the sheep mown grass.
Laughter from the boy as Mother looks on.
The vixen watching from the trees, concerned, vanishes.
Grandfather plays a little, but holds his chest.
Honking geese vee to the south, avoiding the coming winter.
Mother walks grandfather to the rowboat.
A loon cries upon the black waters.
There is a tumble and a splash, then silence.
…Complete silence…
“Where are you?” cries the child.
He waits for her, impatient, shivering.
The playful breezes dance the leaves.
He swings his legs, sitting upon the dock.
A lone frog croaks amidst cattails.
Grandfather’s cane rests in the boy’s lap.
The rowboat floats with its belly to the sky.
The mountain water is cold upon the boy’s feet.
The sun is setting beyond the lake.
His tummy grumbles in hunger.
The crickets chirp in the brown saw grass.
The lake closed today for the winter.
Mother’s hat floats upon calm water.
寂しい (Lonely)
Alone,
She waits by the water,
She waits on the shore,
Her true love is coming,
To meet her no more.
Alone,
He drinks in the kitchen,
He drinks in the bar,
He moons over Molly,
As he crashes his car.
Alone,
She sings in the shower,
She sings on the stage,
Her fans always love her,
When she stays in her cage.
Alone,
He works through the mornings,
He works through the nights,
He’s hoarding his money,
When the heart attack bites.
Alone,
She sits by the window,
She sits in her chair,
Her children have left her,
In a resting home’s care.
Alone,
He sleeps on his bunk,
He sleeps on his bed,
He’s pines for his freedom,
As his last rites are read.
Together,
Search out the lonely,
Search out the lost,
Bring us together,
Or consider the cost.
The Hologram Heart
He has a hologram heart.
It is shiny and new.
He takes it out and plays with it.
Which is not what he should do.
He prowls the neon streets,
Hunting for his prey.
He captures them and tortures them,
since they cannot get away.
He has titanium hands,
They are agile and strong.
They tear at flesh and fracture bone,
To a dark and terrible song.
He has a positronic brain,
It is wily and keen.
He is smarter then mere mortal men,
And a million times as mean.
He has a digital God,
Empty and dead.
Who never answers beck and call,
To the monsters in his head.
He has a hologram heart…
Smash it, quickly now!
Zachary’s Lament for Jane
Where are you my love?
Where is your sweet voice,
The smell of jasmine, laughter, and the tinkling of bells?
You have stood by my side,
feeling but untouchable,
warming my heart in a world gone cold.
Where are you my sweet?
What have I done?
Kept from the golden gate, afraid, sharing each other?
You were taken in your youth,
Broken by a brute,
And left to dwell with me in my living purgatory.
Where are you my dear?
Where have you gone,
A ghost of yesterday, haunting, yet so alive?
You have fallen into the abyss,
Descended into the depths of forever,
And become an eternal memory.
I will always love you.
I will never forget.
The smell of jasmine, laughter, and the tinkling of bells.
Mercy and Promise
The bell tolls in the distance.
The widow mourns in black.
For her there is no solace, no peace, nor joy.
He is dead.
The thunder shakes the heavens.
The priest waves the censer.
For him there is hope, peace, and sanctuary.
He knows promise.
He is not dead.
Nor is he lost to rot and decay.
He is not dead.
He will return on another day.
The child plays in silence.
Her mother weeps alone.
Father passed and left them, sad and starving.
He is dead.
The priest feeds the widow
As he is fed by another.
Love and compassion binding personhood.
He knows devotion.
The lightning cleaves the sky.
The killer shivers in fear.
For him the law hunts, relentless, unstopping.
He wants mercy.
There is one who gives mercy,
There is one who gives life,
Compassion, and loyal devotion,
Even to those undeserving.
He is not dead.
He has risen from the tomb.
He is not dead.
He will return in greater glory.
The Lute Lad
A noble soul, he is betrayed
by men of ill repute.
They left him on the moor to die,
alone with just his lute.
When he awoke he saw the eyes,
of wolves beneath the moon.
Who circled ‘round the dying fire
for blood and meat as boon.
They looked at him and he at them,
For minutes long as days.
He took up lute and began to sing,
To calm their wolven ways.
First, he sang of maidens fair
who yearned for soldiers strong,
Then he sang of sailors brave,
On journeys far and long.
He sang of children lost at sea,
For their salvation found.
He sang of pirates in their ships,
And how they ran aground.
He sang of mists on empty moor,
And wolves who howl to moon.
He sang for lonely minstrel lads,
Who tripped on death too soon.
Cerridwen took pity then
For he moved her heart so fey.
She made the wolves to lie asleep,
Until the break of day.
So minstrel when you are alone,
And caught out with the worst,
Make sure your lute is strung up well,
And all your songs rehearsed.
Ruin and Beauty
Running and laughing through wind weathered halls,
Beautiful image to those who remember,
Dancing and singing to drips as rain falls.
A palace to bats and brown mice in December.
Her ramparts are leaking and battered with age,
and windows are broken and shattered by hail.
Her glory did pass when she stepped from the stage,
And neglected remains where ghosts alone wail.
Will somebody save her from ruin and decay?
How can she endure the decades alone?
Will some loyal soul return here to play?
When will they polish the vine covered stone?
Her stairs coil about like a serpent relaxing,
And lead to the balcony high in the air.
Halls have been swept by a bureaucrat’s taxing,
The garden’s neglected and given no care.
The wrecking ball swings to bash in her walls,
The bulldozer growls to eat her foundations,
To build one of those convenience malls,
To pay off the debts of her maker’s relations.
Longing – Haiku in 14
Carmine sun rises / boundary of a new day / “Wake up my sweet love.”
Sounds of waves lapping / boat rocking in the low tide / your eyes a green pool.
Blue sky and cool breeze / goose bumps cover my body / greeting joy’s new day.
Sea gulls wheal above / like kites on a summer wind / crying for their fish.
When you have left me / this haunting of a day lost / I wake and recall.
Your shadow is there / but your body is buried / in far away sands.
I draw my net in / for work will help me forget / the true love I had.
“Please don’t forget me / I am not mere memory / never a shadow.”
“I cannot forget / whiskey won’t grant me relief / my longing remains.”
Fish caught in my net / gasping for air entangled / my soul without you.
My tired bones creaking / I row to the pace of time / toward the shoreline.
My skin is umber / but my sharp eyes see you there / strolling on white sand.
When I get closer / I cannot believe my eyes / you are dead no more.
But she is not you / wading outward to greet me / “Welcome home, Father.”
Spring Sunrise
The swelling mother of dawn,
Crawling outward from the gloom,
Bending night like the grass,
And curling the mountains away.
Shimmer, oh twittering dawn,
Full of birds, and bees, and busy things,
The gurgling brook beckons,
And the maiden goes to bathe.
Trill, my lovely cardinal,
Red crest slicing the air so brave,
Dancing amongst the leaves,
Of last autumn’s descent into chill.
Sing and rejoice, for spring is here,
Laugh and be merry in dance.
Like the glistening dew,
Be the jewels of the morning.
Rise, oh fair maiden from the pool,
Do not be ashamed of God’s divine gift.
Embrace the morning sun,
Hold close the shining new day.
Splash, goes the beaver,
In his pond of sticks and mud,
Yearlings swim and play,
While mother feeds her pups.
Laugh, oh nymph of woman blooming,
In your springtime of life,
Be good and kind to others,
And give honor to your mother.
Rejoice, oh creatures of the day,
Partake in the rising of beauty,
Give thanks for the green, and kiss the petals.
Dance in the flowered fields of May.
Missing Bread
The bread is gone,
Gone from the hungry,
Gone from the widow and the poor,
Gone from the old, the sick and the young,
Into the mouths of the corpulent,
Into the gullets of the greedy,
Into the guts of the selfish.
The bread is gone,
Because charity became an obscenity,
Because society chose hate and hostility,
Because the poor became the enemy,
Lost to the money lender,
Lost to the crazy spender,
Lost to the sly thief.
The bread is gone,
We bet on the wrong horse,
We gambled against the house’s odds,
We threw away our children’s tomorrows.
While a few gather in the chips,
While a few build their palaces,
While a few tread on our necks.
The bread is gone,
Our banks are empty shells,
Our police war against us, and beat us,
Our prisons are full of the innocent, the lost, and the broken,
For we have rejected the truth,
For we have hated another,
For we have lost our way.
The bread is gone?
The Songstress
She sings with the voice of an angel,
her guitar an extension of her soul.
She is lost in a world of complexity,
As she drifts without resolute goal.
She dreams of fame and fortune,
And wishes for love uncontained.
She is shamed by her acts of confusion,
For impulsive sins she’s been blamed.
She needs a guide to assist her,
An agent of truth who will lead.
She casts them away when she finds them,
And leaves the heartbroken to bleed.
She isn’t vicious or evil,
Just a force of nature and song.
She must allow others to help her,
To carry the verses along.
So when you hear her fair singing,
Let your heart be uplifted and swell,
Though a dream is more than a person,
That person must be nurtured as well.
Memorial of Twenty Years
The stood in queues,
They stood in lines,
They waited for their lunch.
Big brother had another plan,
That put them in the crunch.
They lost their girls,
They lost their joy,
They sold them off to others.
Their spoiled boys were all alone,
Pampered, without brothers.
They gave up freedom,
They worked as slaves,
They yearned for better days.
Big brother had another plan,
That crushed their hopeful ways.
They counted children,
They hid the best,
They sent them overseas.
Thrown to gender genocide,
So their masters, they could please.
They tried one day,
They tried one week,
They stood up to the beast.
But no one in the big wide world,
Helped them in the least.
They remember now,
They bear the wounds,
They own those twenty years,
Tiananmen Square where they once stood,
Is filled with mother’s tears.
Let’s hope for change,
Let’s yearn for truth,
Let’s seek a better path.
We can never let the despot win,
Or give in to their wrath.
Quantum Quarternion
I am falling through the world
An echo of light from the distant past.
Searching for a tomorrow which may never come,
And hoping for a future which I am destined to lose.
Clock at one.
Speaking from the hiss of a radio detuned,
I talk, am heard, but not acknowledged.
Shaken by the chaotic, stirred into the ether.
I am a twitch in a transistor, held in a quivering state.
Clock at two.
Shout for me lightning as I start your spark.
Speak for me mutation as I change the beast.
I am the ragged wanderer between the stars.
Ghost of a billion yesterdays wrapped in a tangled thread.
Clock at three.
The child is born and I pour through her.
As I pour through all mortals, a cup of nothing.
I vex the precise and bring agony to the chip.
I am a curling trail of bubbles in an alcohol box.
Clock at four.
The physicist is confused by my complexities.
The mathematician is offended by my simplicities.
The fool forgets me and is happier for it.
While the wise man races me to divine conclusions.
Clock at five.
A boy becomes a man and grows old.
My age is stretched by the speed of genesis.
The flip of a coin and the toss of a die,
Summon Higgs to answer for his crimes.
Clock at six.
There is a violin strung in my heart.
It plays a tune as old as time itself.
A melancholy dirge of a builder’s sorrow,
Of origins unmade by disasters of choice.
Clock at seven.
Some say I come from the center.
But I have never known a center.
Others say I am from the dying core,
I cannot recall that past to make a future.
Clock at eight.
I am you and you are me.
I shimmer within, too deep to swim,
In your bones and your flesh,
freed when the sun grows old and senile.
Clock at nine.
For all of man’s vaunted wisdom.
I am an enigma, a contradiction, a mental scourge.
I breach the common sense of the classical,
I grow the huckster’s existential jumbo mumbo.
Clock at ten.
I awaken the truth and quench the lie,
While hiding both in facts unmeasured.
When you ask for both and insist,
I flit away on a lark of interference.
Clock at eleven.
Wake me at the end of the universe,
And ask me if I ever had any fun.
I will recall the dances within your soul,
And forget the offenses of your collider.
Clock at twelve.
I am falling through the void
An echo of light from the distant past.
Hoping for a tomorrow which has a chance,
And searching for a person who will find me.
Lazy Summer
Opal sands on a beach of black,
Toes and feet a swingin’
Passing time for a tan on back,
Parasol dancers singin’
Monkey steals an old man’s hat,
– hue and cried slow motion.
A hefty boy on a floating mat,
In dire need of lotion.
Beer is cold and the tide is high,
Salt and spray a flyin’.
Towel flaps as it hangs to dry,
a baby’s somewhere cryin’
Summer time is a gift of life,
Up and down the shore.
Forget your troubles, cool your strife,
And relax a little more.
Žemė
She is a jewel in the sunlight
Blue, green, and brown.
She is wet and wild in the wind,
But enjoys wearing white.
She is fertile yet sometimes barren.
Her temper makes her children shake,
And they flee the fires of her rage,
Yet they adore her beauty,
While strangers seek to marr it.
She wears robes of grey,
And glimmers in the misty dawn,
Standing out against the stars.
She races her companion,
Chasing but never catching the sun.
She is old and yet young in spirit.
Her companion tugs at her tresses,
Teasing her with his changing moods.
She is strength, yet weak.
She is full, yet empty.
She is mother, daughter, and child.
She is yours and mine, yet…
No one can ever posses her.
Wounded
I am wounded, and yet not bleeding
Wounded by the days which pass in sorrow,
by the moments that drift in pain.
The sun is my enemy,
blinding me to others,
Binding me to solitude,
Enforced by the chaos of fear, conditioning, and bile.
I am wounded, lame, and broken.
Mind bound by mortal loss,
A bloodless Coup d’état of the brain
Chilled by unlove, and hastened to tragedy.
Time is my enemy,
Worth more dead,
Then ever alive,
A corpse drudging down stairs, and up, now rotting.
I am wounded, gifted, and foolish.
Heart shattered on love’s anvil.
Wounded by barriers and spikes of distrust,
By resentment and misfortune.
I am my enemy,
Holding my soul naked,
In shaking hands,
To be crushed by the heartless act of another.
I am wounded, and wounding others
A wolf in a trap turned violent.
Wounding through acts of neglect,
By hiding from pain and fear.
I must surrender,
Give up despair,
And embrace hope,
Or the wounds will never heal — forever.
Pretence
Sunlight on a dappled pony’s flank,
In brilliant meadow running fast and free.
Mother waits with cookies on a plate,
As the boy pretends that he can’t see.
Breezes blow across the grassy plain,
A girl in cotton dancing under sky.
Mother reads within her sitting room,
As the boy pretends that he can fly.
Scattered shadows dance beneath the pine,
A rascal fallen from the highest limb.
Mother sits beside his to bed to cry,
As the boy pretends in lands of whim.
Snow white blooms assault the summer’s wind,
A girl in sorrow standing by in fear.
Mother sobs beside the quiet grave,
As the boy pretends that he can’t hear.
Ripples on a pond not far away,
Coy swimming as they beg for fallen bread.
Mother sits upon the rocking chair,
As the boy pretends that he’s not dead.
Judged
The shameless man begins and stops anew.
He breaches faith and finds another sin.
He bends the truth and binds himself to pain,
and ends his life in broken misery.
The foolish man embraces things mundane.
He bows before the ordinary craft.
He spends his waking hours chasing smoke,
and ends a life that was no life at all.
The vicious man pursues his prey with glee.
He breaks the bones of those who block his path.
He tears apart the innocents he finds,
and ends his life as prey to predator.
The prideful man surmounts the people’s tower.
He calls the weak to bow before his throne.
He judges those who fall within his power,
and ends his life as prisoner to fate.
The faithless man ignores the signs inside.
He bruises truth to build his fantasy.
He calls a horde to burn down holy towers,
and ends his life a victim of his flames.
What sort of man will you be in the end?
Will you do good to those who bring you harm?
Will you remember hope when darkness comes,
and find the truth and spring to life anew?
Stirring
There is no peace upon the bed
That lies beneath the stones.
There is no silence in the pit
That traps my soggy bones.
I won’t come clawing into light,
Nor will I haunt the moor.
I’ll only be a memory –
a scribble on the score.
The fox, she barks at shadows gone,
of branches in the night.
But I will not be stirring there.
My fate I will not fight.
The owl hoots a scolding call
That stills the cricket’s din.
The noises in this netherworld
Resume their force within.
The worm and mouse and mole are here,
Beneath the shifted loam.
The skunk has carved a burrow now,
And made my coffin home.
I await a future judgment day,
For all the wrong I’ve done.
I cannot hold with any pride,
A victory which I’ve won.
Timeless, plays the rustling score
Of birth and life and death.
Now to fall asleep again,
A slumber without breath.
Sorry
She didn’t respect me too much,
And neither do I all the same.
It is isn’t her nature to loath,
For that I’m entirely to blame.
I’m not an unreasonable fellow,
Nor can I be caught without clue.
It’s others who take the disliking,
whose twisting of hemp turns me blue.
I’m swinging up high in the rafters,
As she looks up at me with a grin.
The surprise on my face is amusing,
And her laughter creates quite a din.
I wish I could take back the evil,
And destroy every fragment of pain.
Or better, be some place quite different,
From this madwoman gone quite insane.
I’ll take back my ill chosen comments,
Even eat up my words which were brash.
I’ll remember her time of the month now,
I’ll even take out all the trash.
The Queen of Green – Haiku in 7
I start as a seed
Cast down from high above me
Wakened by spring rain.
I seek the sunlight
Yet find only darkness here
Stem pale as a ghost.
The sisters stand tall
Hiding me from the panda
Black, white, and deadly.
I lift my neck up
And grow like fire into sky
Green, tall, and strong.
One hundred years pass,
Flower once and then perish
Men come to take me
I won’t bend to break
bamboo patch on a steel bridge
stepped upon yet proud.
Of green I am Queen
A community of grass
My children growing
Between the Sharp Shadows : The Houses of Ghendt : Chapters 1 through 3
Chapter 1 Jasmine
“You can get used to anything – haven’t I already said that? Isn’t that
what all survivors say?”
— Yann Martel (Life of Pi)
I’m walking home through the rain, sans raincoat, slowly. Slowly because
of the misery which awaits me at my front door. Sans raincoat because of
my brother, who is not much of a brother. It’s hard to see through the
downpour and my swelling eye. I shiver and stand under a pine tree, which
only changes the cadence and smell of the rain, and not the chill nor the
quantity. I cry a little, sniffle some, and continue down the mountain
path towards home, avoiding all of the convenient shortcuts. An old woman
whose name I can’t recall, shuffles toward me on her daily pilgrimage, to the
one room market near the bus stop. My brother is there with my raincoat
with his rough friends worshiping a mechanical pinball god. Father
doesn’t whip him when he is late. The rain increases in fury and the old
woman stumbles in the red, clotting mud.
That sensation, which has been frequenting my mind since I was nine years old,
rises again. Some cavity of thought, which feels like an extra hand,
reaches out to steady the old lady. Yet my hands are still within the
soggy confines of my jeans. Then, as quickly as it came, the sensation is
gone, and the woman resumes her progress unaware of an arcane rescue.
Once again, that unreliable psychic waldo, helps another in their plight, but
leaves me to fend for myself.
I am much smaller than my twin brother, whose picture must be beside some
dictionary’s entry for bully. I turn to look after the woman who
vanishes in the twilight deluge. I am Jacob to an Esau, but my name
remains Zackary Mulholland. As I walk around the blackberry thicketed
corner, I see my father’s delivery truck parked beside the two-story workshop,
which conceals his business. A vine tries to grab me, but I step beyond
its reach. I smell venison cooking in the house where my mother is
laboring over a hot stove. She is tired, this I can sense before I’ve
crossed the threshold. My father is in the house, a blistering presence,
as sour as my rough-hewn sibling.
“Why are you late? Get over here, boy!” says my father, in his most
dangerous voice. Mother doesn’t say anything. Self-preservation is
the rule in my father’s house. Father is sitting in his recliner,
mindlessly zapping away at an equally mindless television set. The cycle
rolls on as he scolds me – Football to news to sitcom to cartoons – without any
break. Father is not stupid, just bored of anything lacking
violence. I am small and earnestly hoping to pass the crisis with only a
few angry words. “Are you listening to me, boy? Get your sorry butt
outside and feed the animals!”
As I step outside into the rain, Mother gives me a look of pity, but does not
say a word. I walk behind the workshop, where secrets grow under lamps,
to the battered old barn where our animals dwell. I have to negotiate the
concrete steps with care, lest I fall into the fruit laden brambles, or worse
onto one of the many solar panels which feed Father’s power hungry
business. The cows see me and plead for relief. The goat and small
herd of sheep run to the front of their pen and ogle me, bleating in an
expectant chorus of dinnertime greeting. I pet them as I fill their
trough with alfalfa and oats, taking time to inspect the she-goat — for she is
due to give birth soon. All three cows come to the trough, nuzzling and
licking my wet forearms as I pour fresh oats into their tray.
The milking is uneventful. No cow traps me against the wall — this
time. After tending to the rest of my chores, I take the milk inside and
make myself scarce, before Father thinks up a reason to think about me.
Our house is a large three-story affair. My room is highest, with a view
of the valley below rivaling every other in the home. I have always lived
in the attic, as if my hulking father is ashamed that such a weakling sprang
from his loins. I strip off my sodden clothing and stand naked before the
mirror. The doctor says I won’t get any taller – that I am stuck at four
feet one inch for the rest of my life. It is as if my brother took the
largest share within the wrestling confines of my mother’s womb and left me
with just enough to live. My eye is bruised from the beating my brother
gave me to impress his friends. I am grateful he didn’t send me home
naked, but even a wolf can bear some degree of mercy. My head is too
large for my body, which causes me to struggle as I pull on a dry shirt.
The walls are lined in books, each one my consolation and friend. When
reality bites, fantasy is a soothing balm. Robert Lewis Stevenson, J.K.
Rowling, Tennyson, and Whitman crowd around the throne of my bed, dressed in
the dust of my years of solitude. This room is my one refuge. No
one dares enter, not even Father comes into the attic.
“Good evening, Zack,” says a girl perched upon the end of my bed. “I see
Raymond has been after you again. Would you like me to talk to
him?” Her voice is full of laughter and the room smells of jasmine,
covering up the sodden smell of a boy’s wet clothing.
“Please don’t, Jane,” I tell her. Ray is too thick to listen to reason
from anyone, least of all, Jane. It is instinct which keeps him at bay,
but a direct challenge from sweet Jane might only make him hate me more.
The world has enough hatred. “How was your day, Jane?”
“The crows are back from the winter, and the fox has whelped her cubs down in
the well house. I went to Patsy’s place, but it’s all boarded up, so I
came back home,” says Jane. She has a far off look as if trying to
remember something important. “I’m sure her family just went on
vacation.”
“Yes, Jane, that must be it.”
As I wait for dinner, I read “Villette” aloud to Jane, who never learned to
read. It feels good to sit beside her as she looks on fascinated by the
life of Lucy Snowe. Lucy had just arrived in the city of Villette, and
had begun the tutelage of her charges.
“Jane, the moon will be rising soon. It is best if you go to bed,” I tell
her gently. She gives me a kiss on the check and goes off to her part of
the attic.
I must have dozed off.
Bang, Bang, Bang!
“Come to dinner!” shouts Raymond from the stairwell. I wait for him to
leave, and then pull the rope to open the trap door leading down into the main
house. When I get to the dining room, Father, Mother, and Raymond sit in
their chairs. Father glares at me whilst Raymond eyes at me with a
smirk. The sight of venison roast brings saliva to my mouth and I sit in
my chair out of reach of Raymond. Father begins one of his long-winded
prayers, in which he neither hopes or believes, and ends with an amen as sharp
as a dagger. The meal is silent, as all meals in this unhappy house must
be. When we finish and Father releases us with another prayer, I follow
Mother to her room so she can tend to my bruises and have a conversation.
“Who did this to you, Zizo?” asks my mother. Zizo is my baby name,
something only Mother ever calls me anymore. As she rubs medicine onto
the bruises, she hums a song which must have been passed down through the ages,
from mother to child. I feel safe in her arms, but I know this is a false
security, since Father could enter her room at any point to drive me
away. Mother could defend herself, but for my sake she has stayed her
hand. Tonight the moon rises full, a dangerous time for Mother and
me. Though the storm is still in full swing, I can sense the tug of the
giant ball of rock hanging up there in the sky, and can feel its unseen light
bathing this world. Mother can as well, but her years of domestication
and the needs of her children, have quieted the rush and stilled the eddy.
“It was Raymond, Mother.” I say this because I cannot lie to her — do not
want to lie to her. Somebody besides sweet Jane needs to know my
plight. Father and Raymond do not know Mother as I do. Sometimes I
lay awake at night to hear her crying and know why.
“I’m sorry, Zizo.” She looks down across at me and holds my face in her
hands. A single tear races down her cheek. I have the same eyes as
she does — those golden brown eyes which drink in a man’s soul. We do
not resemble Father and Raymond. “One day, I will right these wrongs done
to you, but today you must bear them. Do you understand?” To this,
I nod, slowly because I am not quite certain that I do. When we are done
talking and the terrible sound of the television shutting off occurs, I exit my
mother’s room by a hidden passage, which leads to the landing below the attic
stairs. It is best for Father not to find me when the moon is high and
full.
Lying awake on my bunk, I listen as he begins his nocturnal tirade against the
world. If there were truly a hell, it was anywhere within earshot of
Daniel Mulholland. Somehow, I know it is not his fault, but still I
cannot help but blame him for my despair. As I lay upon my bed, I hear
Jane talking in her sleep – unaffected by the turmoil below us. The
clouds have divided, sending a gleaming shaft of moonlight into my room.
Motes of dust dance in the light as I hide under the covers so it will not
touch me. I know moonlight will not hurt me, but somehow I feel
threatened by its cold luminance. After a while, the raging hushes
downstairs as Father leaves the house, door slamming in his wake. I fall
asleep, dreaming of things from books and fanciful desire.
“Wake up, Zack,” whispers Jane. I smell jasmine again. Her breath is
sweet with it. I feel the soft caress of her fingers as they brush the
hair out of my eyes. The sun is streaming through the window over my bed,
making her appear as a juvenile goddess here on an Earthly mission. She
is wearing her best white smock with her hair tied in pink and yellow
ribbons. “Did you know you snore, Zachary? It’s not a bad sound
though, not like Raymond. Can I come to breakfast with you?”
“You snore too, Jane,” I fib. In answer to her second question, I say,
“I’m sorry. It still isn’t safe for you to come downstairs when Father is
home. You know how angry he gets.”
“Yes…”
Once again, her face wears a far off look. I regret mentioning Father, but
it is so difficult to avoid his presence.
“Do you have to go to school today, Zack?” pleads Jane.
It’s Saturday and Father will be in the workshop all day, tending to his
business. He is devoted to his work more than he neglects his
family. I decide to take Jane for a walk among the pines along one of the
many trails throughout our property. We can be alone since Raymond will
be hanging out with his friends.
“I’m staying home today. Would you like to go on a picnic – just you and
me?” I ask her knowing she could never refuse. We arrange to meet
in the woods after I complete my chores, and I head to the small bathroom in
the attic, while Jane returns to her place amid the travel trunks and relics
long stored and forgotten. Her bed is an old mattress, stacked atop a
hundred years of National Geographic magazines. I respect her privacy,
for our situations are not so different, with only a sliver of cordiality
dividing our relationship with Father. As I wash my face, I notice
something new. A fine black hair is growing from my chin. Though I
am sixteen, physical maturity has belatedly arrived. I must ask Mother
for a razor when the time is right, since for Jane’s sake, I cannot afford to
be driven from the house for showing signs of manhood. Raymond is the
designated heir, and he will tolerate no pretense on my part. Red wool
covers his face, a young vibrant copy of Father’s.
Mother is in the parlor, sitting in the sun. My breakfast is on the table
with steam rising into the air. I sit down across from her and she looks
up from her book to smile at me. Those eyes, which see everything, spy
the new hair upon my chin.
“Soon you will be a man, Zachary – no longer my little Zizo,” says Mother as she
looks at me over “Žolės naudingos Raganystė.” It is fortunate for Mother
that Father cannot read Lithuanian. “We will have to talk about this
change and how it will affect our lives. First, finish your breakfast and
then tend to the animals. Your father is making a delivery. He will
be gone until tomorrow.”
I do as I am told. I feel liberated because Father is not home and my
brother is gone as well. As I head down towards the barn, I hear the hum
of pumps and electricity coming from Father’s business. The cameras
stationed outside track my progress, as I almost fly through my duties.
Just because Father is gone does not mean he isn’t watching. Jane will be
discrete. Today’s chores take longer than those done morning and
night. Saturday’s labor is composed of everything left undone throughout
the week. Father does not allow work on Sunday. This does not stop
him from his work – his rules apply to others. I rub the spot on my arm
where the bones have poorly mended, as a reminder. Father takes pleasure
in the execution of his Law. It is nearly noon when I finish, exhausted
but happy. Nanny goat beds down in the birthing pen — an ancient queen,
surrounded by her minions, the sheep. The cows are out in the pasture
eating the damp spring grass, frolicking unladylike with release from winter’s
long confinement. The chicks follow their mothers on picnics of their own
while Salda the goose guards against our resident fox. She is older than
I am, and takes her duties seriously. She will allow me to pet her
because I am the one who feeds her.
I return to the house and encounter Mother who takes me by the hand and leads me
into her parlor. I haven’t washed up yet, and smell like the animals I
serve. A single trail of smoke rises from a stick of incense in its pot,
sunlight casting a playful shadow on the table from the windows in the
ceiling. I sit down on the delicate couch beside her as she takes my face
in her hands, looking into my eyes as though searching for something.
“Have you felt anything strange, Zizo?” she asks with care, as though something
she might say could ever scare me off.
“Just the usual things, Mother.” I do not keep secrets from her.
Such a thing is impossible for me.
“If anything changes, will you let me know, right away?” she asks. Fear
and anticipation hide just behind the limb of her voice, as if she is hiding
something from me – something dark and desperate.
“Yes, Mother.”
I leave her side and go to the pantry to fetch a basket and a tattered
tablecloth. I fill the basket with lunch and a jug of birch beer, and
take the back door out of sight of Father’s paranoid mechanical
observers. Tree frogs hop out of harms way, as I take the long crooked
stairway, which descends the western side of the mountain to the forest
below. Last night’s rain creates jeweled drops on the needles of the
trees in the stillness of the noonday sun. Red and brown mushrooms hug
the trees as more frogs evade me. Soon I stand upon a mossy knoll in the
midst of a small clearing beside a swift brook.
“Hi, Zack!” says Jane as she strolls through the meadow. She stops here
and there picking spring flowers. Some adorn her hair while she grasps
the rest in a pale hand. She is wearing a yellow dress, diaphanous over
this morning’s smock. The scent of jasmine precedes her, as always.
“I saw Raymond today. He was playing down at the lower pond with his
friends. He didn’t see me – ignored me even! Zack, why doesn’t
Raymond want to play with me?”
“I don’t know, Jane,” I say to her, though in truth I know why, but cannot bear
to hurt sweet Jane.
“I went to Patty’s house again. The roof has fallen in after last night’s
storm. I do hope they get back from vacation soon, before all of Patty’s
nice dolls are ruined.” She takes the cloth from the basket, lays it upon
the mound, and lies back with an exaggerated sigh to watch the puffy clouds
race across the sky. I lay beside her, one hand in the cold water of the
stream and the other in hers. We lay there a long time, silently watching
the scrolling of the sky with its occasional skein of geese heading to their
summer nesting grounds. “Do you love me, Zack?”
“Always Jane, always,” I say for the hundredth time.
“I woke up before the moon set, and saw a golden gate down in the garden.
Patty was there and I wanted to go down and see her, but your Father was
outside. He does frighten me – yet I cannot recall why.”
“Jane, please do not go outside when the moon is in the sky. Promise me
you won’t,” I plead. My fear of moonlight wrenches at my soul. I
know I am being selfish, for sweet Jane is my best and only friend. A
robin settles on the moss a few feet away and tugs at a worm who tugs back with
ferocity. The worm breaks, leaving the robin with his prize and the worm
with his life.
“Okay Zack, I won’t.”
I unpack our lunch and hand her a sandwich. It lies in the hammock of her
dress uneaten as she talks about the things she sees when I am at school, as
well as people she once knew. As I eat, I look at her face, unmarred by
pain or concern, a princess of a long lost kingdom. Yet here she sits,
granting me audience as if I were her equal. The breeze changes direction
and brings a chill from beneath the bower of the dark forest. Goosebumps
rise on my arms as I start to stand up, but before I can, Jane knocks me over
and gives me a kiss upon my lips, smothering me with it, jasmine tinged and
sunlight laden. She is strong, her hands holding mine apart, spread out
upon the moss. Jane looks into my eyes with compassion. Her hair
loosened from ribbons is tickling my neck and face. Her body sits atop
mine with her knees upon the moss.
“I do love you, Zack!” she says. As quick as she captured me, Jane
releases me. When I look for her, she is gone from the meadow, but
tinkling laughter drifts from the mountain above me. She is the same
today as she has always been, unpredictable yet untroubled. She was five,
the same age as me – cloistered in the attic with those other things best left
forgotten.
As I gather up her uneaten food and repack our picnic, my thoughts drift back to
my earliest memory of her. I think about that moonlit night long ago,
when Father found Jane, a neighbor’s child, hiding in the barn. Her place
in the attic is all she has known since. As I have grown, she has as
well, but the innocence remains resolute. The magic of her comings and
goings always surprises me, with the jasmine and the tinkling of bells common
yet oddly unexpected.
The juggernaut approaches me with intent, bearing down on me, not wavering to
the left or right but drawing a bead upon my position. I am nearly home
but not close enough. His fellows are lumpy like him, built out of God’s
cursed clay, bound for perdition before it can find them. If I run, they
will only catch me in three steps to my ten, and beat me more for making them
sweat. Raymond is in front, greasy hair combed and neat, a style copied
by his brethren. They wear matching clothes, but Raymond is the master of
the others. His new beard is a flame upon his cherubic face, yet only
fallen angels reside within his soul.
“Hey Runt! What are you doing in my woods? Didn’t I tell you to stay
in your room and play with your dollies?” His taunting does not bite me
because I have never played with girl’s toys. He is thick and unable to
come up with anything witty enough to scar my mind, but he makes up for this
weakness with his physical strength. He is tall — taller than the other
boys in our school, and wider as well. By right of being the alpha bully,
he has selected the second and third largest boys to be his entourage. Physical
defense is not an option, being small and unobtrusive is my only chance at
survival. Thus, I do not respond to his questions but instead hang my
head in submission. I must let him think his words are enough to hurt me.
“I thought so. Hey Calvin, show Runt what you have in the bag.”
The monolithic Calvin, Raymond’s second in command, opens a canvas bag and dumps
out the body of somebody familiar. She lays there ruffled and still, her
eyes faded by death, her feet hanging limp. As I see her head lolling to
the side, I let out a gasp. Why? She wasn’t a threat to anyone,
certainly not to Raymond and his cronies. Tears form in my eyes as the
boys laugh at my distress. Stewart, the third wheel, kicks her body and
laughs as she rolls down the mountainside and into the thicket.
I try to fight it. I struggle but the emptiness within me blossoms into an
all-consuming darkness, which my mind cannot evade. The dark hand within
my mind springs into action. I cannot control the hand as it lifts
Steward high into the air. He ascends above the treetops. The dark
hand hurls him down the mountainside and far out of sight. The sound of
branches and bones breaking are all I can hear as his mates stand with mouths
agape. Raymond is too thick to make the connection between my presence
and Stewart’s fate, but his second in command is not so stupid, as he looks at
me with newfound fear. The dark hand is not done, its energy not
spent. It lifts my dead friend from the thicket gently and brings her to
my arms. I hold her and smooth her feathers – poor Salda.
The brutal association finally makes it through Raymond’s thick pate.
Before he can spin around and run for the house, the dark hand catches him up
by his greasy hair and shakes him, his kicking feet pummeling Calvin’s head in
the process. It then drops Raymond onto his comrade who is now sobbing
for mercy. An individual procession, I carry the limp body of Salda the
goose back up to the barn in full view of the cameras, to force Father to make
an inquiry. Tears fill my eyes as I lay her in a bed of straw and then
make my way to Mother.
She meets me in the kitchen, fear in her eyes. She has felt the rush and
the eddy. She must know its source. She drags me through the house,
her long fingernails digging into my shoulder as she quickly moves me into her
parlor.
“I have hurt somebody, Mother,” I tell her through my tears. “I think I
may have killed them.”
“Who Zizo? Whom did you hurt? Whom do you think you’ve killed?” she
gasps with her hand upon her mouth.
“Stewart, but Calvin and Raymond were there.” As I speak, the front door
slams open and Raymond begins shouting for Father. Seconds later, the
pair of boys storm into Mother’s sanctuary.
“Mother, where is Father?” demands Raymond. He doesn’t waste politeness on
Mother because Father never does. Calvin hangs back, just at the entrance
of to the parlor, afraid of me, yet unwilling to disobey Raymond. “I
demand that you tell me where he is!”
“You demand?” Mother asks. She never raises her voice, unlike
Father, yet her quiet words hint at something new.
“Yes, I demand!” shouts Raymond, spittle spraying the sanctity of Mother’s
parlor. He is too clueless to see the signs of anger growing within
her. He steps up to her and raises his hand to strike her, but stops
mid-swing. Raymond threatens me in this fashion frequently, but this is
his first physical threat against Mother.
“He is gone on business. What do you need from him?” answers Mother
without flinching. An eddy similar to mine is stirring in her, a feeling
I’ve never felt before in her, even during Father’s most terrible rages.
“Runt did something to my friend, Stewart. I don’t expect you to do
anything about it. Father will though!” he looks at me, sneering.
He has lived the role of bully too long to recognize his predicament. He
is too thick to feel the buildup of power. His misfortune is the
inheritance of his Father’s lack of insight.
“Man liūdna ji atėjo į šį.” whispers Mother. For a mere moment I see
beneath the façade she has shown to us all. I see a woman who is old,
impossibly so, yet beautiful beyond belief. Her beauty would drive any
mere mortal mad with desire and jealousy. A cold gust of wind enters the
room and the door to the parlor slams shut. A farmer I once knew stands
guard in front of the door, arms crossed. The room fills with the smell
of clover. Calvin jumps at the sound, as well as the sudden rush of wind,
but does not shrink at the presence of the new arrival. Raymond turns to
look at the door and then spins to glare down at Mother, still trying to
intimidate her.
“Mother…” he begins in his most menacing tone, but she raises her hand to stifle
him. I am surprised he stops talking, but then see it is not by his
choice. Something unseen and powerful is over his mouth, gagging him.
“Do not call me that! Zachary is my son – you are merely a consequence,
your real mother is here!” With that, Mother strides over to the window
seat and throws open the lid. Crumpled within the shallow space lays the
mummy of a woman, her hair is the same color as Mother’s hair. “I gave
birth to Zachary, but she,” she says pointing to the corpse, “gave birth to
you!”
“Father said we are twins,” I stammer confused.
“Your Father is dead, Zachary. Raymond’s father killed your father, just
as he killed Raymond’s mother here.” Ray struggles under his muzzle, but
cannot break free. I am happy this towering lummox is not my brother and
I am angry that the man I called Father is in fact my father’s murderer.
“I have stayed in this place too long – tolerated too much.” Mother
reaches into the window box, lifts out the skull of the mummy, and crushes it
as easily as if it were made of marzipan.
I watch, as the person I have always known as Mother, unfolds like a piece of
delicate origami. She spins and twists in the hands of a mad cubist –
finally settling into a new form. During this transformation, Raymond and
Calvin stand with mouths agape, unable to make a sound.
She is terrible to behold, yet beautiful. Taller than Raymond or Father,
she stands before us revealed a queen. Her hair and nails are black
against alabaster skin. Her arms are sinuous, muscular, and covered in
red symbols. She wears a silken robe with a single chain of silver around
her waist. Around her bare ankle there is a heavy iron band, and upon it
an arcane symbol. The skin beneath the fetter is swollen and red.
Her eyes are the same golden brown, but they shine with an inner light — the
light of a full moon. She leans over Raymond and looks down into his
lumpy face. Now he is terrified.
“I have been a prisoner of this house for long enough. You, who have dared
to wound my son, who has terrorized and degraded him since the day you could
speak, bow before your master!”
Calvin dashes to the door, but the farmer takes him up and hurls him against the
wall. He hits a delicate table, which shatters, sending a silver tea
service clattering to the floor. Stunned, Calvin remains where he lands,
looking frightened and confused.
“Hold him,” she says to the farmer, who obediently grasps Raymond by each
shoulder. She releases his mouth and he begins shouting obscenities at
Mother. With the same smooth grace, she goes to one of the cabinets in
her parlor and removes a small vial of red powder. Mother returns to
Raymond and begins scratching a symbol into the skin of his forehead with the
black fingernail of her right hand. The blood drips down his face as he
screams in pain, writhing against the iron grip of his captor. “Remember
this, my Zizo — the right hand is the cutting hand.”
Mother pours out a tiny amount of the powder into her left hand and rubs it into
the wound. Raymond screams louder still as the substance burns, releasing
the pungent odor of cooked flesh.
“Release him,” she commands the farmer. Raymond slumps to the floor,
sobbing. His tears mix with the drops of blood already there. For
several long minutes he cries, body heaving with emotion. When he finally
looks up into her eyes, I am surprised to see he is no longer angry or
frightened – his adoration of Mother is complete.
“Bow to your master, servant,” commands Mother. Raymond turns from her and
bends his corpulent girth in obeisance to me. I feel a blush redden my
face and am about to ask her how such a thing can happen, when she shushes me
and turns to Raymond again. “You will obey me and my children
forever. Go to the barn and get whatever instruments you need, to remove
this cursed thing,” she says to him, while pointing at her swollen ankle.
The farmer steps away from the door and Raymond yanks it open in haste,
sprinting to accomplish his mission.
“Mother, the moon will rise soon!” I cry, when I see the crawling shadow
of the mountain outside.
“I know son, I know, but for now we must set things in order before our warden
returns from his errands. We will be leaving this place tonight, but
before we do, we will have to gather anything of value to aid in our
journey. You need to go to your room and pack your things. Only
bring what you can carry.”
“Mother, what about Jane?”
“Jane? Oh … indeed, your little friend. You may bring her as
well. Make sure you bring all of her, for if you leave the smallest part,
she will be of no help to you where we are going.” Mother opens the
window seat again and reaches amidst the desiccated skin, bones, and clothing
to remove a long thin box of pine engraved with curly glyphs. “Put her in
this, I am sure she will fit by now.” Mother opens the box, raps it on
the back, causing a spider to descend to the floor. Snapping the lid
shut, she hands it to me. “Zachary, I am sorry I had to deceive
you. I wanted to prepare you – to give you time to discover
yourself. The people of this place would not allow me.”
My mind spins as I try to come to grips with this afternoon’s events. Who
or what is Mother? What am I? Leaving Mother to deal with Calvin, I
exit her parlor and head for the stairs. For the first time, I notice an
iron plate bolted to the floor of the common room. It carries the same
symbol as the fetter on Mother’s ankle, which now glows green.
“Jane, where are you?” I call into the attic. She must be napping.
With the box still in my hand, I enter her private place to find it
empty. She is not asleep on her mattress, nor is she sitting on her chair
by the northern window. For a moment I think she has gone outside to
play, but change my mind when I realize something important, something I’d
forgotten through the years. Beneath the window, in a cabinet meant to
hold toys, I know what I will find. With great reverence, I unlock the
clasp and open the lid to look inside the cedar chest. There in a blood
stained smock of white covered in spiders and dust lays my dearest friend,
Jane. I look down upon her — still remembering today’s kiss though the
corpse within is of a small child. Nevertheless, I know it is Jane.
The odor of jasmine is unmistakable. The balls of potpourri used to
conceal the odor of decomposition, still dangle from the lid of her tomb.
I am crying, as I take her small frail body, and place it into the box which
Mother gave me. Jane barely fits within, her skin dry as parchment, her
broken neck difficult to straighten. Folding the muddy yellow dress, I
lay it on top of her body, packing it around her fragile bones. When she
is secure, I search for any remaining fragments, feeling amid the crawling
things for bones. I almost miss it. There, in the corner beneath a
spider’s egg sack, is a golden ring, a promise ring. It is a ring of the
sort given by a mother to her daughter, for when she finds her true love.
I slip her ring onto my finger and am astonished to see that it fits. The
smell of jasmine fills the air as I close the lid to the box.
Chapter 2 Descent
Lair-Right is the right of the Mother. From all of her year she may claim
/ One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may deny her the same.
— Rudyard Kipling (The Law of the Jungle)
I find an old rucksack in the depths of the attic. Some war veteran put it
away as a fond memento. Someone had written the name “D. Holtz” on the
flap. Inside I discover a canteen and a mess kit as well as a laminated
map of Germany. I stuff some of my clothing and a couple of my favorite
books into the pack. I leave space on the top for anything Mother might
want me to bring. Finally, I tie the box onto the pack, after sealing it
shut with some brass screws from an old door. Looking back one last time
upon the room which has been my refuge for as long as can remember, I almost
hesitate. The moment passes and thus I turn my back on that place and
head to the parlor to assist Mother.
Stewart is there on the floor, his crumpled body not yet in rigor mortis.
He lays on a tarpaulin, face turned toward me, eyeballs protruding from their
sockets. His mother will weep for him soon, but that is not my
concern. Calvin now bears the same glyph as Raymond, but it is upon his
exposed chest. He saws away at Mother’s bond with single-minded
determination while Raymond can be heard ransacking the house.
“Zizo, take this and pour it on that metal plate in the common room, but not
until I tell you to do so. As soon as you are done, get behind
something.” Her voice is still gentle, despite her change in stature.
“Yes, Mother,” I say, as I take a vial of clear liquid from her hand. Her
appearance will take some getting used to. A part of me misses her petite
façade more than a little bit. The scraping of the hacksaw continues as I
kneel down beside the metal plate whose symbol now glows a brilliant red.
Removing the stopper from the flask, I wait for Mother’s command, eyes
searching for something to dive behind.
After ten minutes of Calvin’s labor, I hear Mother shout, “Now, Zizo!”
I pour out the vial onto the metal plate and see it begin to bubble and hear a
hiss as vapor escapes. I jump up to my feet and find refuge behind the
malignant recliner. Seconds later, flames and shrapnel spray the room,
and when the acrid smoke clears, I almost laugh to what little remains of
Daniel Mulholland’s sitting room. Where the plate once lay, an iron chain
is now visible. Mother’s years of dragging it around have polished the
links. I watch as the other end of the chain flies out of the parlor and
shatters a mirror on the opposite wall. Mother steps out of the parlor
carrying a leather bag and a stack of books, and places them near the front
door. She moves much faster now, unhindered by the chain, her body an
ethereal blur, yet somehow I can see her. She returns to the parlor and I
follow her to see Calvin and Raymond rolling the body of their friend in the
tarpaulin.
“Come with me Zizo, I want to see what Daniel Mulholland has been doing with his
time.” She grasps the handle of the oaken door and looks back at
me. For the first time in my memory, Mother steps out of the house.
Not unlike an ancient wraith, she glides across the courtyard, through the
moonlight, and into the shadow of the workshop. At first, I hesitate to
walk into the light of the full moon, but Mother beckons. Stepping into
the light, I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel anything, and so I cross the
moonlit courtyard. The sound of machinery becomes louder as we approach
the doorway, camera following us. The door is iron and when Mother
touches it, she withdraws her hand in disgust. “Can you open it?”
I try the knob, feeling the tingle of metal beneath my fingers, to find the door
locked. I have never been inside the building, but I have seen Daniel
carrying lamps and other equipment inside. Not far from his workshop,
there is a good-sized heap of failed machinery. However, before I can
think too long about the problem, Mother scales the wall and bashes open a high
window. I shield my eyes from the falling glass, and when I look up
again, she is gone. Inside, I hear an alarm blaring. After a
minute, the alarm stops and Mother opens the door from the inside. She
stands there, bidding me to enter.
I had guessed that my mother’s captor grew illegal marijuana under all of those
lamps. With the pumps, off-the-grid electricity, and lamps, it is easy to
assume. Therefore, surprise is my reaction when I see the scene before
me. It is nothing but a hole in the ground. The building is one
large room, from the rocky floor below to the rafters high above, illuminated
by a dozen large halogen lamps pointing into the pit. Water spills from a
pipe at the rim of the pit, into a pool whose contents leave the building via a
grating. Shipping crates and iron cages are stacked against one wall,
where a ramp ascends to the loading dock on the outside of the building.
Mother strides down the steps into the building and examines a porcelain vase,
which sits upon a workbench. It bears flowing pictographs colored in
contrasting glazes. The workbench bears many other artifacts as
well. Jewels and precious metals adorn items of clothing as well as armor
and weapons. For a moment I imagine Daniel is some sort of archeologist
exploiting a secret find and dwell on the thought.
“He is a common thief,” answers Mother to my unspoken words.
As we stand there, Raymond and Calvin bring the body of their comrade down the
stairs and onto the rocky floor. They lay him there and then stand mute,
awaiting further instruction from Mother. It is unnerving to see the two
of them so passive in my presence. I feel as if any moment, they both
might start laughing and commence some act of cruelty upon me. If it
wasn’t for the body in the tarp, I might even be compelled to hang my head in
anticipation of a beating.
Mother takes a delicate shirt of ring mail and hands it to me. From an
ornate glass case she withdraws a number of flasks of oily colored liquid and
puts them into the leather bag. She stuffs more items from the table into
the pockets of my pack and then as an afterthought hands me a short wicked
blade in a black scabbard. She selects a nasty looking mace for herself,
and looks back to see me holding the items with a dumb expression on my face.
“Put on the mail and belt up the dagger, Zachary. You may have to defend
yourself.” I have never defended myself. What makes Mother believe
I can now? “Be brave, my Zizo,” she says, as though she is reading my
mind.
Mother walks to the edge of the pit and looks into its depths. Standing
beside her, I cannot see the bottom of the well. It descends into the
distance, lit by a string of lamps anchored to the smooth stone wall. The
cage of an elevator hangs above a small catwalk at the edge of the pit.
Mother leaves the edge and addresses me.
“We don’t have time for it to fill with water. We must use this
contraption to the reach the surface,” says Mother. She strides over to
the four large industrial pumps and smashes the connectors until the hoses snap
off and slide of their own accord into the pit. The pumps wheeze and
finally come to a stop after losing their prime. She returns to our small
group and continues, “But first, I must make certain this place is never used
by Daniel Mulholland to enslave and steal from my people again. Raymond?”
“Yes, Ma’am?”
“You will be staying up here. When you see your father, would you mind
doing me a favor?”
“Anything!”
“When your father arrives, cast him and all of this treasure into the well,
destroy this building, and then guard this place for as long as you are
able. Do not allow anyone to enter or exit the well. Do you think
you can manage this for me?”
“No problem.”
“Calvin, you are coming with us,” says Mother. She has a smile on her
face, as she steps onto the lift and bids the two of us to follow. Calvin
enters with the body of Stewart, and then returns for the bag of things Raymond
looted from the house, while I follow up the rear, closing the cage door behind
us. Mother stands in the very center of the lift, unwilling to touch the
metal of the yellow cage. Reaching out with her long finger, she presses
the button to engage the motor and we descend.
It seems like hours, but I count only seventy-five lamps, before I see the
smooth surface of the water, our image perfectly reflected. After we pass
the last lamp a hundred feet from the bottom, I feel the same eddy inside of my
mind, as if the water is drawing me toward it. The well is at least
twenty feet across, and the stone walls weep water through uniform alcoves
ascending in a spiral toward the surface, each the size of a man. I see
now where Daniel found his treasure, for some of the alcoves at this depth
contain the possessions and bones of dead warriors, priests, and kings.
What society was this? Who planted this well so deep, and left such
elaborate relics, yet had not made so much as a mark on the surface?
“Zachary, the water is the key. We must swim in the well, but first we
must send this machine to the surface since its metal hinders our journey.”
Journey, then why are we down in this hole? I think to myself.
However, I don’t have time to think much as Mother pushes me into the frigid
water along with Calvin and the body. As I paddle my way to the nearest
alcove and hang on, I hear the cage begin its ascent to the surface, followed
by a splash as Mother follows us. As the water rises, I follow the spiral
of alcoves to keep from sinking under the weight of the sodden pack. I
pray that Jane’s remains keep dry, while trying to maintain my grip on the
slippery wall of the pit. My teeth start to chatter as I realize if I
don’t leave the water soon, I might die of hypothermia. I can’t turn my
head to see what has happened to the others, but the sound of Mother chanting,
as well as Calvin’s frantic breathing, reassures me.
The wall of the well begins to glow with a soft blue light as Mother continues
to chant words I cannot understand. With each syllable, the light grows
brighter while the water feels warmer. A part of me listens and learns
from her words, though they remain opaque to the rest of my mind. With a
flash, the illumination changes from blue to a carmine red and we’re falling,
descending without restraint, deep into the bowels of the mountain, into the
darkness of the pit. I spin in flight to see Mother holding onto Calvin’s
hair with one hand and her leather bag with the other, red glyphs on her skin
shining with eye-stinging brilliance. We fall — orbiting each other,
passed the countless alcoves through what is no longer water, but something
akin to fire. Mother continues to chant, her words bearing more meaning
to me with each passing moment. The sigil on Calvin’s chest burns white
hot, yet it doesn’t appear to cause him any discomfort.
When I look below I see the well, which has become a tunnel, expand into a vast
cavern illuminated by a violet sphere. Random bolts of energy slice
through the space, one coming closer than comfortable, as we exit into its
expansive hollow. As we get closer to the pulsing orb, I see other people
ascending and descending into its violet interior, each on some journey to
elsewhere. Distracted by the sights, I don’t notice the approach of a
something hard and purple.
I awaken on a platform of sorts. No, it is nothing more than purple mist,
which somehow prevents me from sinking. The mist numbs my mind, but I
begin to listen when I hear someone talking. Groggy, I get to my feet and
see Mother, Calvin, and the corpse in the very center of the disc of mist.
“That one is already marked. I cannot use him,” says a disembodied
voice. It is deep, but not masculine.
“He is mine. I am offering the shrouded one,” says Mother, pointing to the
body in the tarp.
“Lady, he is dead. What am I to do with a dead body?” The voice
sounds annoyed, but hints at less than complete resistance.
“He hasn’t been dead for very long. We both know what uses you can put him
to,” she responds.
“I might have been able to use him, if every bone in his body wasn’t broken,”
says the voice. I can see a hint of a shadow in the direction Mother is
facing, but little else. “What about the small one? He would
perfect.”
“Don’t you dare!” The glyphs on Mother’s arms flare blue, and the shadow
backs away. “Do not look into him, unless you wish to pay the
consequences!”
“So sorry, Lady. Shall we get back to business?”
“As I was saying, you could use the dead one because he is still fresh.”
“I see where you are going. Okay, I agree, but only if you patch him up so
he won’t die again,” says the shadow. It sounds pleased with itself, as
though it had gotten the better end of the deal.
“Very well,” says Mother. “Calvin, unwrap Stewart and then go stand by
your Master.”
Calvin unties the rope around the tarpaulin and unrolls the body of his
friend. Mother goes to her bag, removes one of the oily vials, and
examines it. She clucks disapproval, selects another, and yet another,
until she smiles, holding one with a soft yellow tinge to it. Removing
the stopper, she dips a nail of her left hand into the fluid. A single
glistening drop hangs suspended from her nail, which she lets fall into the
open mouth of the corpse. She then tears open his shirt to expose his
bare chest, which is slate grey in the ghastly light of this netherworld.
“Zizo, come here and place your left hand upon his chest. I cannot mend
what you have broken. Only you have the right. Will him to be
healthy, believe that such things may happen, and it will be so. Your
life debt to his spirit will be paid, and our passage secured.”
I hesitate at first, but trust Mother. By now, I will do anything to get
away from this gloomy place, with its numbing mists and talking shadows.
Stepping over to the corpse of Stewart, vicious companion of Raymond, I start
to place my hand on his chest but mother grabs me by the wrist.
“Your left hand, Zachary,” she says with panic in her voice. I withdraw my
right arm and place my left hand upon the corpse’s hairy, cold chest.
Afraid to fail Mother, I do as she commands, and will, with all of my might,
for Stewart’s body to mend. I imagine the broken bones connecting, the
torn ligaments binding, and the smashed organs regenerating. I focus upon
my task so much, that I am startled when Mother shakes my shoulder, shouting in
my ear. “Zizo, please stop!”
“What’s wrong, Mother,” I ask, confused. The body beneath my left hand is
breathing slowly, but there is nothing in the eyes to give any hint of
intelligence.
“I will tell you later,” she says to me in a quiet voice. Standing up,
Mother returns to the shadow and addresses it. “Our part of the bargain
is complete.”
“Indeed it is. The small one has done a marvelous job. My new
acquisition should last eons. You are too generous,” says the
shadow. While it speaks, an orb of dull red floats from the distance and
approaches our island disc. “Passage to the Sixth House, as you
requested.” I feel strange, a cautious pawing in my mind, with a tinge of
something rotten about it. Almost through instinct, I eject it, and build
a mental barrier to keep it out of my thoughts.
“Oh! Lady, you dare! What is this abomination doing here?” shouts
the shadow, but Mother has me by the arm and jumping into the red ball of
flame. Calvin is close behind us with our bags. As I fall into the
redness, I catch a glimpse of an angry face shrouded in black smoke, screaming
strange words I am certain must be obscenities. I feel her hand
constricting my neck and see stars swimming in my vision. I try to tell
Mother, but can only croak weakly. As we recede into the distance, Mother
utters a single word, which I cannot hear, but instead feel. The shadow’s
bone white face bursts into fragments and leaves us in silence, plummeting into
the depths of the red globe on a journey to our elsewhere.
Chapter 3 The Sixth House
“Zizo, drink this,” says Mother. She looks into my eyes with concern, as I
take a sip from the cup in her hand. Its cold water, but it goes down my
throat like fire. I still see the hideous face of my attacker, leering
out at me from within her cowl of black smoke. “Those Shades from Oridon
are too curious for their own good. I hope she didn’t hurt you too much.”
“Zack, where are we?” says Jane. I’m sitting on withered grass upon a ring
of stones, with Mother kneeling beside me, and Jane sitting atop a fallen
granite block. In the center of the ring, a pool of clear water ripples
in the hot breeze. The sky is blue and cloudless.
“I don’t know, Jane.”
“We are, with any luck, somewhere near our destination, though I wouldn’t put it
past that lowly Shade to cheat me. When you restored that boy, you should
not have reanimated him. Few denizens of the Seventh House have the
ability to restore life, which is why she became suspicious. She was
jealous as well. Shades do not heal naturally, and have to barter with
the other houses to remain in corporeal form. I must admit, you did a
remarkable job. If she’d kept her nose out of our business, she’d still
be around to enjoy wearing Stewart’s body.” I imagine what it would be
like to wear the corpse of another person, and find it revolting.
Mother looks tired — for though her new face is more difficult to read, I can
still feel it. Jane walks up to her and smiles.
“Hello Ma’am, I’m Jane. Who are you?” she says, offering her hand to
Mother.
“I am Zachary’s mother. We’ve met before, but I looked different.”
“I remember — you were the one inside of Raymond’s mother. How did you do
that? How far is the house? I don’t recognize anything here.
Is it summer already?”
“Zachary, your little friend might get us into trouble if she pops out when we
are in mixed company. Is there something you do to send her into her
focus?” Mother’s tired voice tell me she isn’t interested in a game of
twenty questions from a naïve little ghost girl.
“I tell her to go to sleep.”
“Jane will be in more danger as we get closer to my home,” says Mother.
“Few humans can see Jane the way we do. The people, who do, learn to keep
it a secret or face ridicule and persecution. Here, the people are a
little more perceptive, and while they won’t see her, they will notice if she
starts gabbing.”
Mother stands up with her leather bag and motions for us to do so as well.
My pack is still waterlogged, and I ponder with dismay the fate of my books and
clothing, as I put my arms into the straps. Calvin hoists the bag of loot
onto his broad shoulders and follows Mother as she walks down what appears to
be little more than a pig trail. Jane helps me to my feet and then
giggles as I wobble precariously. Striking out after Mother, we catch up
to her at the bottom of a dry riverbed.
The path ends in a wall of brush whose thorns defy passage. After a moment
to decide on a direction, mother begins following the riverbed downhill.
It is rough going for me, for while the others can use the boulders as stepping
stones, I must jump from one to the other. At one point, I find myself
wedged between two rocks, but Calvin who takes up the rear, lifts me out and
sets me upon my feet again. Finally, after three hours of jumping from
rock to rock and scurrying across each sandy wash to catch up, I have had
enough. While my pack is now dry under the hot sun, my shoes are damp
from sweat. Thus, I sit down on a rock, remove my backpack, and wait for
Mother to notice me.
“Zizo, what’s wrong?” asks Mother.
“I’m tired. My legs are too short to keep up your pace.”
“I’m sorry Zizo, do you want me to carry you? We must get to shelter
before nightfall. There is no telling where the Shade sent us. I
won’t know until we meet somebody.”
“Couldn’t we just rest?”
“No Zizo. Calvin, give me the bag and carry your master on your
back. Do not drop him.” Calvin scoops me up before I can say
anything in protest.
“I will carry your pack, Zack,” says Jane. Mother raises a coal black
eyebrow at this, chuckles, but does not say anything further as Jane pulls the
straps over her shoulders.
The sun reaches its zenith by the time we make it out of the dry riverbed and
out onto a wide expanse dotted with islands of tall, leaning trees.
Mirages shimmer in the distance against a backdrop of snow capped
mountains. A single green hill rises out of the dust in the foreground,
an anomaly in this arid place. Calvin continues to carry me, but the
strain of descending the rocky riverbed is starting to show on him. I
tell him to put me down and follow behind with Jane beside me.
“Jane, could you go up ahead to that hill and tell me what you find without
being seen? Do you think you could do that?” asks Mother.
“That’s an awful long way to walk, Ma’am,” says Jane.
“Just close your eyes and imagine yourself there, okay?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Jane stands there with her eyes closed, but begins peeking after a
couple of minutes.
“You have to try harder, Jane,” says Mother. “Have you ever found yourself
somewhere without remembering how you arrived?”
“I don’t know. When Zack isn’t home, I just play, go to Patty’s house, or
walk through the woods. I haven’t much thought about how I get there.”
“Trust me when I say, you can move to a place far away, just by thinking about
it,” says Mother, with just a hint of impatience.
“Can I go back home? This place is strange to me.”
“No Jane, home is beyond your reach now. Please try to imagine standing
near that green hill, in the shade of a tree or behind a rock. Do the
same thing you do when you go to Patty’s house.” Mother looks tired from
our recent flight. She stands with one arm against a leaning tree and
waits while Jane tries once again to go to the green hill. Jane closes
her eyes, and after a minute of concentration, transforms into a small pink
ball of light, which lingers for a moment and then speeds away. The ring
on my finger grows cold and I hear the tinkling of bells in the distance.
I sit down in the shade of a tree, eyes following my friend, wondering why it
was so easy to ignore the obvious, so simple to accept her comings and goings
as mere coincidence. How many times have I seen that little pink orb and
blotted it out of my mind? Due to the twisted machinations of fate, I
still see her as precious, as sweet, but not as the disembodied spirit of a
girl who ran afoul of Daniel Mulholland. I consider all of the things
which have transpired so far in these late hours of revelation, and resolve to
find the solution which will reunite me with my ethereal love. I must
learn the things Mother knows, so I may have the strength and wisdom to return
Jane to life. I must become brave, despite years of learning cowardice at
the hands of bullies.
“Zachary, I know all of this must be confusing to you. When I was a little
girl, things like this didn’t happen everyday either. Trust me when I
tell you that things will end up better for you and me if we stay on the move
and don’t look back.”
“Mother, how did Fa… I mean Daniel, capture you?” I ask her.
“My husband, Jedar and I came through from the Ghendt because we heard rumors
that a Seventh was looting the tombs of the Koris. We were also looking
for a safe place to raise you, out of the prying eyes of our families.
The Koris scattered their tombs throughout the Ghendt and its houses, and then
disappeared with the exception of a few. The Koris are the oldest race of
people and the ancestors of all others. When we entered by the well, the
way was blocked by that iron contraption which weakened me. Daniel was
there and offered to help, but when he saw me, desire for me overcame him, and
thus he drowned Jedar. He put me in chains and made me a servant in his
house, hoping to tame me.” The look on her face frightens me as she
recalls Daniel’s crimes.
“How did you come to look like his wife?”
“As you know, he has those terrible fits of rage. They are due in part to
his contact with the relics of the Koris. Some of them bear curses
against anyone who may steal them. He killed his wife within a week of
bearing his son. You were born a month afterwards, thus I used her bones
and memories to cloud his mind. Her spirit had long since passed on, but
I wore her likeness and concealed the chain to make him think I had escaped and
that his wife remained and bore not one but two sons. I don’t think she
would have minded, since she always treated me with kindness in the few months
I knew her. I raised both of you as my own, but Raymond fell under the
influence of his father’s curse. The rest you know.”
We sit there together in the shade of the leaning trees, and wait for sweet Jane
to return.
“Zizo?” asks Mother.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Does Jane know she is dead?” The sadness in her voice is profound.
I gain an insight into her nature. Though dealing death and destruction
may be among her abilities, she remains apposed to it. The Mulholland
family bought doom down upon their own heads, but she did not savor the role
she played.
“No Mother, I don’t believe she does.”
“Let’s keep it from her, for now.”
“Okay, Mother.”
The smell of jasmine and tinkling of bells announces the return of Jane, who
bears her usual smile. “There isn’t anything on that hill but an old
building with nobody in it.”
“Are your sure, Jane?”
“Yes ma’am. I waited a long time, but nothing moved while I was
there. I went inside the building, but there was nothing but the bones of
mice and bats. I haven’t seen much of anything move since I woke up in
this place — just a few birds, bees, and scorpions.”
I think about what this might mean, but Mother is well ahead of me.
“Everyone get up! We need to get to that hill before sunset.” There
wasn’t panic in her voice, but I could feel it coming from inside her.
Thus, we pick up our things and walk from shady refuge to shady refuge across
the hardpan flats towards the emerald green hill. Mother pulls out a
bottle of water from time to time and passes it around whenever exhaustion
overtakes us.
“Mother, what did you do to Raymond and Calvin?” I ask as we sit yet
again.
“It was a filthy thing, Zizo. I am not proud of it, but they left me no
choice. I placed a sigil of obedience, the mark of a slave on them and
then bound it to myself. As long as I live, in body or spirit, they must
obey me. Such things transcend death and the master of the mark is the
only one who may release them. When Raymond perishes, he will not enter
the Golden Gate. No, he will yearn for me, haunting the well. He
will jealously guard the well in life and death.”
“Will Daniel try to follow us?” I ask, worried that the man may hunt us down.
“No, Zizo. I believe we will see no more of that particular monster.
If Raymond obeys, which he will, Daniel will have already drowned in the well,
though it is hard to tell, since time moves differently in every House.”
“Why didn’t you mark him the same way you did Raymond?” Resentment bubbles
up from deep inside me when I ask her this.
“I am sorry, Zizo. Somebody betrayed your father and me. Daniel
already bore a mark from another hand – a hand that is responsible for our ill
treatment. I could not command him. This fact forced me to wait
until you were old enough to act outside of the rules our betrayer set against
us. Daniel knew about my weaknesses before he ever saw me. A
skilled hand warded and measured that chain, long before I arrived pregnant
with you. We cannot go directly to our home because there is a risk we
may be followed.” She takes a deep breath and then changes the
subject. “We need to keep moving. This place is not empty on its
own – something or somebody made it empty.”
The sun is nearing the peaks of the distant mountains, casting long purple
shadows which threaten to catch us. Mother is more urgent now. She
carries the bag and my pack while Calvin has me piggyback. She glides
along effortlessly, looking back from time to time to allow the jogging
teenager to catch up. Jane doesn’t seem bothered by the pace.
Unfatigued, she skips along from place to place, looking at this and that, as
if on an afternoon stroll. As the shadows of the mountains crawl across
the plain, strange puffs of dust rise geyser-like along the horizon. From
that direction, I smell cinnamon upon the evening breeze. We are close to
the green hill and I can see a squat stone building upon its summit with four
tall and twisted braziers at each corner. Green grass and a few tall
trees grow upon the flanks of the hill. It looks like an island or maybe
an oasis in this flat, desiccated wilderness.
“Zachary, we must get to the hill before the shadows arrive. If we don’t,
you must take out your dagger and be prepared to use it,” shouts Mother.
As she runs, she positions the bags on her back so her hands are free.
“Remember Zizo, anything I can do, you can as well. Just watch me and
learn.”
As she speaks, the sun kisses the snow-capped range and the shadows race toward
us at tremendous speed. Gouts of sand and dust burst out of the hardpan
wherever the shadows touch, leaving holes in the ground from which something
red and glistening pours. The hill is still in the sunlight, but as I
watch bouncing upon the back of Calvin, all four braziers suddenly flame to
brilliance, driving away the shadows to the base of the hill. We are
almost there when a limb of shadow comes between the hill and us. A scant
thirty yards remain towards our destination.
“Remember Zizo, the right hand is the cutting hand. Call upon the part of
you which killed Stewart to protect you in battle, but be prepared to use the
knife.”
A geyser opens up barely ten yards away, and out of the resulting hole, I
finally see what the red substance is. Countless ants, red fire ants,
boil out of the ground searching for prey. They fan out is a great
fractal circle, blindly hunting for anything to eat. The ants tear apart
crickets and scorpions caught in their path with indiscriminate violence,
carting back the bits to the gaping hole in the ground. A yellow bird
swoops out of the sky and tries to catch one of the fleeing crickets. The
ants quickly engulf the bird, and in moments, chunks of meat are on their way
back to the nest. Some of the ants are pulling fat insects along toward
the leaning trees. When they get them to the leaning trees, the distended
bugs climb up the trunk and pierce the bark with a dagger long
mouthpiece. The pungent odor of cinnamon is overpowering. I draw my
blade and wonder, what use it would be against these bone-stripping marauders.
“Edua ye Estha,” says Mother. She holds the mace in her
left hand but her right hand is empty. Fire erupts from the tips of
Mother’s splayed fingers, creating a swath of destruction wherever she directs
it. I jump down from Calvin’s back and prepare to defend myself from the
roiling surge. Is see Jane standing in the middle of the swarm, and in
seconds, the ants envelope her in their biting fury.
I hold the black dagger in my left hand and say, “Edua ye Estha” in imitation of
Mother, but only feel a little warmth in my palm. I am beginning to
panic. I must save sweet Jane! The armored surge is within a couple
yards of Calvin and me. I must concentrate, I tell myself. I feel
for the absence, that emptiness where the dark hand resides, and am relieved to
feel that familiar rush and eddy.
“Edua ye Estha” I cry aloud, holding my splayed right hand in a
fan toward the assaulting ants. The dark hand is what bears the flames,
not the short stubby hand attached to my body. It rises like a great
incandescent fan, a peacock tail of fire. I will it to sweep across the
land between the hill and us. The flames dwarf Mother’s, billowing
outward from the invisible fingers of the dark hand and driving back the ants
enough for us to make a mad dash to the safety of the hillside. Jane
appears at the summit waiting for us, while Mother follows Calvin. I
alone remain, incinerating the plains with flames, which continue to increase
in length and heat, threatening to rage out of control. The leaning tree
islands nearest me are now burning pyres, and the warmth from the broiling
insects threatens to set my clothing on fire.
“Zizo, stop!” shouts Mother from the summit. However, I do not heed
her. The rush is too great — a cyclone within my mind, spinning and
thrashing about. The thrum of power builds to a high-pitched cacophony of
obliteration. I feel the power rushing into me from out of the ground and
leaving me through my invisible right hand. I am drunk with the power,
the heady feeling of significance, denied me for all of my life. I am a
giant laying waste to my enemies with an arm a long as a redwood, and a great
hand with which to crush them.
Crack!
I wake up to the smell of jasmine and the tinkling of bells. Tears drench
my face, but they are not mine. They are sweet Jane’s tears. She
holds me with my head in her lap rocking me gently, the warmth of her flesh
embracing me. She is sobbing, but when I look into her eyes, I see she is
angry as well. My head hurts and when I feel behind it, my hand comes
back with a little blood. I have a goose egg as well, which makes me
wonder what transpired.
“Don’t you ever hit my Zack again!” she shouts. Mother is sitting on the
grass rubbing the side of her face, which now bears a pink handprint. The
surprise on Mother’s face is perplexing until I realize Jane must have slapped
her.
“Zachary, would you tell your friend Jane, that if I hadn’t knocked you out, you
would be dead, consumed by your own power.” Mother sounds almost
amused. She has a smile on her face, then I realize this is the first
time she has ever witnessed the dark hand in action. The look on her face
is one of pride, yet it shows a great deal of concern as well. “Zizo,
your friend is very protective of you. I wonder what would have happened
to Raymond or Daniel if our betrayer hadn’t confounded her.”
I look out over the plain and see the burning islands of leaning trees extending
out to the horizon. I did that? Yet the evidence spreads before me
– the hordes gone, nothing but smoldering corpses. The empty spot within
my mind feels warm and comfortable, as though it were satisfied after eating a
delicious and filling meal.
“Are you all right, my Zack?” whispers Jane. When I nod my head, she
smothers me with kisses until I extricate myself from her arms, before I
suffocate. How can a mere ghost exhibit such control over my
senses? I do enjoy her affection, despite my knowledge of what resides in
the box. As far as I can tell, she is more real than anyone else I know.
“Yes, Jane. Though the lump on my head could use some tending,” I say this
looking toward Mother, who goes for her leather bag. She removes a pouch
of medicine often used in the past to heal my sibling-induced injuries.
When she approaches, Jane glares at Mother, but relents when I persuade her
that everything will be all right.
“I am sorry I had to hit you, Zizo,” says Mother, kissing me on the forehead.
“You are new to the Gheal, the force which binds the Houses to the
Ghendt. The circumstances of your heritage and upbringing have conspired
to make you more powerful than I could ever imagine.” Mother rubs some
cream onto the back of my head and places her left hand upon the lump.
After a moment of tingling warmth, the pain goes away. I smile into my
mother’s exhausted eyes. “Your father and I broke the law to conceive
you, and broke another by raising you in the Seventh House. You must
learn to control the Gheal, to reduce its strength to what others would expect
of you as my son. After tonight’s display, I am surprised there was
anything left of Stewart.”
“It felt so good Mother,” I tell her. “It felt like I could do anything
and nobody could stop me.”
“That is the peril of the Gheal. Strength lies in restraining it to do
your will. If you fail to keep it in check, it will consume you, reducing
you to a Ghost or worse, a Shade. When the trees finish burning, there
will be no food for those ants and they will die.” Mother brushes the
hair out of my eyes and continues. “You have disrupted the natural order
of things. A Guardian from the Sixth House is bound to come and
investigate. We will have only a few days to find passage away from
here. If we are in the area when a Guardian arrives, we will have little
hope of escaping.”
The stone building is set into a small depression on the summit of the
hill. It reminds me more of a monument than a place a person could
live. My suspicions are confirmed when I find a plaque with what looks
like names and dates written upon it. The script is impossible to read,
but its layout and prominence tell me nobody has ever lived here since the
construction of this building. I walk around the perimeter of the edifice
with Jane beside me and see an entrance on each of the four sides. While
I cannot see inside due to the contrast between the braziers light and the
interior shadows, I sense the presence of nothing more than dust and long
exhausted decay. On the southern side of the building, I find a modest
fountain with a pool of fresh water in its basin. The bronze statue is of
a woman holding a lamp, and when I come close to it, I can hear soft music to
accompany the cold gurgling water. I sit down upon the fountain’s edge,
remove my shoes, and lay back to look at the stars. I see all of the
familiar constellations, and as I watch, I see a shooting star race across the
sky. The gentle music is a balm to my strange day and soon I find myself
nodding off to sleep.
“Wake up, Zizo,” says Mother. I’m stiff from sleeping on the stone lintel,
but the bright morning sunlight and the smell of bacon cooking, gets my
attention. When I sit up, I see Mother and Calvin sitting on a bench a
few feet away from a fire. Mother is cooking while Calvin is feeding
himself. I don’t see Jane, so I assume she is still sleeping in her
box. Mother’s hair is untied, gleaming black in the morning sun.
Her silken robe is singed in places and the slap mark on her face has become a
bruise. I offer to put salve on it and she accepts, patiently waiting
while I apply the ointment. She leans down low so I can reach, and I
notice how her alabaster skin is warm to the touch. I can feel the eddy
within her, a ghost of last night’s maelstrom, and catch glimpses of strange
memories. I see her standing in a cathedral of pure light beside a man
dressed in red. His face is like mine, but his hands shimmer in the
brilliance of that place. He is smaller than she is, but his eyes speak
of great strength. I know, with certainty that this man is my
father. “Please Zizo, do not pry,” says Mother softly. I am careful
to use my left hand, keeping my right in my pocket. When I’ve mended her
bruise, I sit beside the pair and eat in silence, contemplating the things I
have learned.
I enter the building and find nothing but a large room with four doorways.
The ceiling is covered in bass relief. The dust is thick so I don’t
notice the lines carved into the floor at first, but my bare feet feel the deep
marks, so I kneel down and sweep aside some of the dust. I find curves,
lines, and delicate curly engravings, which feel like water rising and falling
in a disturbed pool – a sort of vertigo. When my right hand touches the
symbols, they glow a faint red, but dim when I withdraw. I return to
Mother and tell her of my discovery. She enters the room and waves her
left and right arms in a sweeping gesture, which blasts the dust out of the
building. Calvin, who has followed us, gags as he gets the worst of
it. I cover my mouth in time, and when the dust clears, I see what Mother
has uncovered. Etched deep into the floor, a great circular symbol of
nested and intertwined rings surround a copper plate twenty feet across.
“It’s another well, Zachary. We don’t have anything to pay for passage, so
we can’t use it until we find something.”
“What sort of payment must we make? Will it be the same as last time
Mother?” I ask, since I worry whether bringing corpses along is common
for travelers. I don’t relish the idea of killing a person in exchange
for passage.
“No, Zizo. Stewart was already dead, which made his body a
convenience. If Shades tend this well’s destination in Ghendt, then
anything living will be of value. Members of one of the other Houses, who
each have peculiar demands, may also tend this well hub. Some demand gold
or precious metals, while others require future services. Their desires
often change over time, thus it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. Only the
First House demands nothing but adherence to their rigid code.”
She confuses me by all of her talk of Houses and Ghendt, yet I remain silent,
some undefined worry present in the back of my mind. On the floor in the
corner, Mother picks up a necklace of gold, delicate with a pendant of
ruby. Back home, something of that quality would bring a fortune at
auction. After examining it, Mother places the item around her
neck. The red gem glows with an inner light as it lays nestled between
her breasts.
We leave the building, which I welcome after all of the gloom, to find Jane in
the fountain, bathing in the morning sun. Her back is to us as she dips
beneath the spray, a delicate nymph in a garden. I see the curve of her
breasts as the water cascades over them and desire her more than
anything. Something new stirs within me, not Eros, but something
deeper. This ghostly girl, now a young woman, is beyond my reach yet
always orbiting me. If I were to reach out and touch her, she would
vanish like so much smoke, and I would remain behind — left alone with Mother
and her devoted slave Calvin. The ring on my hand is as warm as the water
is cool. Calvin stares at her nakedness and I almost attack him in her
defense, but pause when I remember how he cannot see her. He is looking
through her.
The hilltop commands a good view of the plain. From our vantage point, I
see that it is in fact the dried-up delta of a river. The islands of
leaning trees I haven’t scorched are what remain of hills not inundated with
sediment. The hill we stand upon was once an island surrounded by an
estuary. To the south, beyond the fountain, I see the unmistakable shore
of the sea itself, and upon it, the shining towers of a golden city.
Springtime
A newly rousted gecko licks the dew from off her eyes,
and peers above the treetops to the raptor from the skies.
A cricket in the leaves beneath the ancient sycamore,
Clicks a happy sordid tune the poet can’t ignore.
Rays of sunlight angle down and warm the hedgehog’s nose,
whilst the fox hunts goslings furtively with mud between his toes.
Spring is here, a lilting tune from birds in twitter trees,
as rainbows dance in colored fire beside a mountain’s knees.
No love is lost in morning rain, as forests drink it deep,
Nor sorrow found in springtime mist as sylvan fountains weep.
Embrace the spring and keep it dear within your chest of dreams,
For we only get a few of these in life’s absorbing themes.
Twitter Haiku
I sometimes take an idea of my own or something from an ongoing conversation on twitter and turn it into a haiku. I will update this list as new ones come into existence.
My breath makes thick clouds/I’ve slipped and fallen on ice./Frozen stars can’t dance.
Bitter cold last night/at six below and falling./Hell’s freezing over.
High on eastern hills/the baked red sun is dimming./Here comes the cool night.
Snow sunlit brilliant/children playing on their sleds./winter came early.
The snow is falling/as white as bills on my desk,/drifting into debt.
My pen bends my soul/as willows bend to the storm./I must not break now.
The dawn comes for me,/Kneeling at the guillotine/Fate interrupted.
Sycamore leaves float/upon the waters of fall./Winter is coming.
There’s a Chimera/Waiting beyond the Blue Door./Haley is his muse.
I was sobbing there./The truck was coming too fast./Spot was not sleeping.
I just heard a sound./The window is now open./My cat cannot fly!
My pillow is torn./The autumn air is chilly./Feathers are floating.
Chapter 1 “Anticipation” of The Last and Furious Hownan: The Doors of Veselago Book: 2
The worst thing about living with old Gerqui was how cranky he was most of the time. The hateful man spent most of his days cussing at the girl, and the other half complaining about the food. Kaletta despised him as much as anyone else did, but they had to live in the same rundown shack and thus a truce of sorts developed between them. He would keep his filthy mitts off her, and she wouldn’t stick a fish knife between his ribs while he was taking one of his long and undeserved naps. He abided by their agreement, mostly. The one time he slipped up, bought him a nasty scar across his chest and the loss of his pinky finger. She kept the dried out finger on a string around her neck as a reminder to him. So while he was more respectful of her person, he still insulted her at every opportunity. If she could leave the randy old goat, she would, but the situation was painfully inflexible – for the moment.
Gerqui owned Kaletta. Her parents had sold her to him during the last famine and had promised to buy her back when the harvest came in. It didn’t and her parents and younger siblings had all perished. The last member of the great Hownan Clan lay on a lice infested cot as property of a tax collector. Kaletta wasn’t the sort to moon about her circumstances, in fact she wasn’t unhappy in the slightest, because she had a secret which all of her Clan kept and the nasty Gerqui and his equally nasty friends were about to find out. She counted the days to the next full moon in anticipation. Kaletta left her cot when she decided it was getting too hard to sleep in the vermin filled straw, took up the entire bedroll, and tossed it out into the rain. Fetching up a fresh bedroll filled with new straw, Kaletta had just finished when she heard Gerqui trip over her soggy bedroll, and land with a splash in the large mud puddle in front of the door. She chuckled when she heard him cussing and waited for him to come into the shack.
“What is this mess by the door? I’m not gone an hour, and you are already tearing up the place. If it wasn’t for the law, you would already be out on your skinny little butt, especially after you maimed me.”
She gave him her most fearsome glower, and went back to preparing her bed. He was all talk and no action theses days, but not out of choice.
“You’d better not look at me that way! The law works in my favor too, you witch! If you disobey me, I am allowed to give you the whip once a day,” said Gerqui. He was wheezing because he was allergic to something in the hay.
“If you lay a hand on me Gerqui, you had better sleep with one eye open, because my little necklace needs another finger.” She waved his desiccated finger in his direction with a smile. Nobody threatened a member of the mighty Hownan Clan, even if she was the last and a slave as well. The law protected slaves from abusive owners, and required them to live under the same roof. If Gerqui threw her out, the social repercussions could cost him his position with the outpost commander. The only way she could leave would be if he freed her voluntarily or one of her kin came to buy out the deed against her flesh. The outpost commander had not punished Kaletta, for her attack on her owner, primarily because he was not exactly sure if all of the Hownan Clan were gone. The villagers, for their part, avoided her when she went to buy food at the market, or bathed in the nearby river. The men and boys didn’t even try to spy on her during her ablutions, because they were under the impression they would be cursed by merely looking on the naked body of a Hownan woman.
“Woman?” she chuckled to herself. She was not yet in the blood, so technically she wasn’t a woman at all, but if it meant a small bit of privacy in this smelly and crowded place, Kaletta was grateful. She counted the beads on her bracelet which told her how many years she’d been a slave. Thirty one years. For thirty-one years Kaletta had served this greasy and unworthy worm, long enough to see Gerqui transformed into the bitter old man he was today. Thirty-one years was long enough to see the Lutho Clan rise to prominence. She knew there were no other Hownan men alive, because she could feel it. With every full moon, her hormones surged a little higher, and during those times, she felt a world devoid of her kin. The villagers all felt the Hownan were witches or some other eldritch creature meant to blight mortal men, and only appeared to be human, but there was no denying the fearsome nature of an angry Hownan. Gerqui had done very well to go these thirty-one years with only the loss of a finger.
The rain outside intensified and the wind picked up in the manner of those autumn storms as Kaletta lay on her bedroll trying hard to remember the face of her mother. It had been so long ago when she had seen her face, thus Kaletta had to spend longer, and longer each year straining to recall every minute detail of her appearance. Mother wore her golden hair in long braids, plaited in intricate knots, which were enough to make a noble woman’s coiffure look tawdry. Her eyes were an almond yellow with round lids, which differed greatly from the squinting Lutho. When Mother entered a room, people usually made way without hesitation. If they failed to give way, Mother was quick to place her hand, with long pointed nails, on their shivering chest and force obedience. Soon, these Lutho and their sniveling minions will pay for what they have done! One more moon and I will show them true fear!
Chapter 1 “Breach” of The Ballerina in the Abyss: The Doors of Veselago: Book 3
I am falling…The wind rips at my clothing and there is pain in my side…I must stay awake. I must do something and I must do it soon. An alarm is battering my ears. A voice fills the thinning air, but my mind is pudding. What have I forgotten…Remember! Open your eyes, assess your situation, and then act according to your training. These words are not reassuring since my eyes are open and it’s still dark. I flail around in the rushing air and feel cold skin against my fingers. I feel an arm adrift and alone, delicate and feminine amidst a cloud of sticky wet droplets. I recoil in horror, jerking my hand away and encounter a breast, a torso, and a face with limp and cold features, hewn from one of my doomed companions. I hear a voice screaming, a woman’s high shriek of terror, and then I realize it is my own.
The escape pod…I must get to an escape pod. Why is it dark? Ah, a tiny light ahead, blinking. Swim in the air and get to a surface to move with deliberation. I swim toward the light, yearning for its uncertain ember. I feel more faces, shredded clothing, and blood, lots of floating spheres of sticky, clotting blood. The wind propels me toward the tiny light as though it were the end of a tunnel. To find an escape pod, merely whistle three notes with an interval of 2-4-1, the emergency locator will respond with the next available pod.
I whistle through shivering lips the peculiar tune and am blinded by a distant flood light. I can see where I am now and I feel no better. I am within a cavernous sphere surrounded by a swarm of human fragments. Far away on all sides, I see forests, grassland, and villages. Ah, a memory, fleeting, but then it is gone. I look behind me and see the source of the tiny light. Around the light is the Grand Ballroom with its transparent titanium geodesic dome shattered as if it were merely cut crystal. Its support braces and broken panels flattening pagodas and trees indiscriminately. The source of the light is a star, a single lonely star shining through a hole in the sphere and through which I would exit into the vacuum of space along with all of the dead and dying. …act according to your training. Swim at right angles to a hull breach and not against it. I begin swimming in the air, stimulated by the prospect of being squeezed out into emptiness along with the corpses and their bodily fluids. My side hurts and I look down and see a tear in my bloodied uniform. My progress is slow, due in part to the torrent of air exiting the breach, as well as the large bubbles of water which were once ponds floating about, still full of confused coy fish,
Finally, I get close enough to the escape pod and am about to enter its safety when I see what is written on a nearby console.
Distance to the nearest Commonwealth system is 54 light years. Chance of living recovery 0.0001%. Have a nice day.
Memory floods back into my addled brain. I am a ship’s steward aboard the luxury liner Imperial Fantasy, just one steward among hundreds meant to pamper tourists’ every possible whim. A crewmember’s primary duty is to protect the ship. The passenger’s safety is secondary to this primary duty. The ranking officer is responsible for all events that transpire under his, hers, or its command. Use of escape pods by an officer is not permitted until all passengers and subordinates are safely evacuated.
I touch the panel and request access to the Imperial Fantasy’s higher functions. A sphere with numerous warning symbols hovers before my eyes. I sweep my hand through the token, which would connect me to the bridge, but it is red instead of green. I try again, with the same result. Instead of hearing the voice of my captain, I hear the computer speak in its gentle voice. The alarm coming from the console stops.
“Hello, Steward Second Class Gloria Tsing, you are the first crewmember to respond. I am awaiting your orders. It has been seventeen minutes since the event, which has reduced passenger life signs to one third of their total. Most were lost during the initial penetration as many passengers were attending the Grand Marquis’ Ball. According to protocol, you are in command unless a higher status crewmember reports. Once again, Madam Tsing, what are your orders?” says the computer, imparting the news like a brick wrapped in a silk handkerchief.
“I want to seal the hull breach. Tell me how to do it!” I shout at the console. For all of their vaunted sophistication, the computers aboard the ship are prohibited from acting autonomously, and require at least one crewmember to issue orders. Thus, if no crewmember ever came to the console, the computer would merrily allow all of the air to whistle away into the void.
“Authorize me to dispatch a repair crew to the breach. I have them ready to go at your command.”
“Do it! Do it now and get the power back on, but leave the gravity off until the atrium is cleared of survivors and debris. Tell me more about the event.”
“An object of unknown configuration punctured the hull and impacted the command observation deck during crew inspection.” The hologram showed an object the size of an escape pod slam into the transparent titanium shielding enclosing the command observation deck opposite the breach. “The object is lodged in a corridor on deck seventeen.”
“Send some protectors to guard it while the repairs are underway. I want medics recovering the living and recyclers to remove non-living debris. Why hasn’t the power returned?”
“Madam Tsing, the object passed through engine room four and punctured a power routing cluster. I have one hour of emergency systems power remaining before the Imperial Fantasy is classified as salvage.”
I don’t know too much about the ship’s systems. A steward second class is the second lowest rank among the crewmembers, which means my particular skills reside in entertainment and not command or engineering. My command training is three days, three lousy days! My dear father purchased my commission with his life savings, and it is up to me to pay him back when I can. If I don’t survive, neither will my family! I watch, floating amid the leaves and bugs dislodged from nearby shrubs, as a dozen large robots propel themselves toward the hole and begin spinning a web of carbon and titanium filament over the gap. Layer after layer are laid down in a thick mat. The net bulges outward into the vacuum but keeps its grip. The sound of rushing wind stops as the console lights up a second time.
“Madam Tsing, inner hull breach is secured and outer breach shrouding is in progress. I humbly suggest you make your way to the bridge. Ship’s sensors have detected another object in our path.”
“Can you avoid it?”
“It would deplete our emergency power reserves.”
“Get me to the bridge immediately! What sort of progress have you made getting power back up?”
I don’t relish the prospect of flying this behemoth any more than a squid enjoys crawling out onto the sand, but lives — mine mostly — depend upon how I perform. Fortunately, my training included a primer on how to give orders and perform basic ship functions, unfortunately, that training amounted to three days in a warm and poorly ventilated classroom.
“A protector is on its way to take you to the bridge. Power restoration will occur in approximately twenty-five minutes.” As I stare transfixed at the hologram, I feel a tug on my arm, a small boy drifts beside me, thumb in his mouth, other hand locked onto the sleeve of my uniform.
“Where are the medics?”
“Madam Tsing, they are finding considerable casualties on deck two below the Grand Ballroom. Your orders were to recover the living, the hospital is already filled to capacity. Medics will relocate the remainder to staterooms and treat them there.”
“Make the floaters in the atrium the priority, and secure any floating debris. Contact me when this is completed.”
A protector android arrives, hull painted in the colors of the Swiss Guard. I climb into its open arms, pulling the boy after me, and feel crushing acceleration as it blasts its way across the gulf of the atrium toward the command deck and the bridge, which lays twenty decks below the surface of the smashed observation area. Twisted girders creak as the ship oscillates slowly beneath them, painted on the inside with the gore of the unlucky officers who twenty minutes earlier had been standing in neat rows undergoing inspection. Somehow, the explosion threw me far enough to avoid death, though the pain in my side is beginning to get worse. The android shoves aside shifted planters and decorations to reveal a hatch.
The door opens with a groan and we enter the darkness lit only by the android’s headlamp, which bounces as the machine pulls itself along the corridor. Deck one is where restaurants and casinos ply their trade just below the atrium. Groaning from the ship’s weakened structure tells me how close we’ve come to being popped like a grape, but no other sounds are immediately discernable. The android stops by a door and speaks.
“I will be passing through compromised areas, you must wear an environment suit. Please don one and indicate when you are ready to continue. Time is critical.” It’s just like an android to get to the point. Stepping out of its embrace, I open the door and climb into the first suit in the queue. I can’t exactly cycle the carrousel to get one in my size, so I instead I get a male model. I thank the boring but thorough instructor who made me don an EV suit thirty times as I slip into the nylon and fullerene garment with the book sized recycler on the back. I hoist the boy into the front of the suit and am grateful it’s several sizes too large.
“I’m ready. Get me to the bridge as fast as possible.”
“Acknowledged. I will use the pengelium.”
Oh my! I’ve forgotten about the pengelium. Before I can countermand the android’s actions, it folds around me and Deck One shimmers and disappears. I lose consciousness as I hear mine and the boy’s screams.
Autumn Cycle — Haiku by 13
by M. Andrew Sprong
Wind swept leaves adrift,
colored tapestry of light,
bound in time’s amber.
The first fall was man’s
where he brought creation down
and death to the world.
Season of harvest,
the beginning of decay,
the first mark of time.
Prelude to winter –
the second season of life
with darkness and death.
The cold clinging frost,
with crystal artists painting
nature in slumber.
Abel’s last winter,
death by Cain’s unloving hand,
jealous for God’s love.
Stirred by spring’s rebirth,
Bear crawls from his winter den,
Seeking swift Chinook.
Flowers garb mountains,
A raiment of paradise,
Joy within substance.
The virgin brought spring,
To a world without real hope,
Because she said yes.
Summer’s hot singing,
Of Cicada in the trees,
And grass between toes.
The beaver fells trees,
And his dam shows ambition,
While the fox cubs play.
Christ was the summer,
He defeated death by death,
Breaking Scheol’s bonds.
Autumn is hope now,
Pain and death cannot hold us,
The cycle goes on.
Chapter 1 of The Adventures of Earl the Misplaced
Chapter 1 The Quartz Chamber
When the mine closed last year, Earl could have probably given up on life just like those other cowards who hung up their picks for jobs at the local super-store — not Earl! He wasn’t about to throw in the towel and let a bunch of bean counters wreck his life. No, Earl had a plan! Anyone who looked at the sawed off little man hardly gave him a glance and went on to more interesting people. Bosses, coworkers, and especially the ladies didn’t pay any attention to Earl these days, but he figured that was their problem, not his. He’d worked the Beckman mine for every single year of its existence — the first to clock in and the last to clock out — but while his bosses got rich, and his coworkers died or moved on, he remained, just Earl. He’d been a part of the mine as much as the two giant ore crushers that stood before him like sentinels at the mouth of the man-made cavern.
The guards were down in the communication shack drinking beer and playing cards. Nobody messed around in the mine, especially the local kids, who drank horror stories from their mother’s breast about the bad things that happened to unwelcome visitors. There were better places to take a girl for a romantic tryst – a two-mile trip up the steep rocky slope was bad enough on the narrow gage traction train, and terrible on foot. No, the guards were there for show so the insurance company didn’t raise a fuss, and they never ventured any further than the front gate. He knew them all; two were the last foreman’s boys and were just as bad tempered as their dead dad, while the other was a chain conveyer operator who’d spent half of his life behind bars, and the other half in them. Earl brought the beer, which they grabbed without inviting him to the game. After all, he was just Earl.
With a flashlight in hand, he stumped up the last few steps to the control room and fished an old key out of his pocket. When it still worked, Earl grunted with satisfaction and entered the cramped box, which stood high on a shelf above the entrance to the mine. From here, he could turn on lights, start generators, and get the ventilator fans working. Earl opened up a large breaker box and disabled the outside lights and crusher motors before closing the power main. The crushers made quite a racket, which would draw attention to his activities, and the lights – well that was just a no-brainer.
Locking the door behind him, Earl stood there for a moment, washed in the gentle breeze drawn in by the large ducted fans scattered around the property at the top of mile long ventilation shafts. Cooper Mountain still had plenty of precious metal locked away in stone, diluted in tons of worthless granite. Extending five miles into the mountain with nearly a hundred miles of tunnels, shafts, and rooms, the mine spread out like a great tree’s roots. A hundred feet below him on the floor of the entrance a massive generator droned, a mere shadow of the assault on the ears Earl recalled.
The old man walked along the catwalk into the mine until he arrived at the plastic curtains, which directed air throughout the ventilation system. He climbed into a stripped down four wheel drive Toyota pickup with a roll cage he’s welded himself twenty years ago. The fire bosses used the truck to move personnel to and from a blasting face, and it had seen heavy abuse at their hands. Fourth gear didn’t work, but only a fool would go that fast in a mine anyway. Earl remembered the moment when a fellow worker busted out the left headlight on the day the bean counters shut down the mine, as the truck sped one-eyed down the gradually descending tunnel. At regular intervals, the pickup passed cutouts fanning outward from the main tunnel, which Earl counted until he arrived at cutout fifty-seven. Two huge granite pillars, left behind to hold up the overburden of the mountain, flanked the entrance. Earl turned to the right and headed into Fifty-seven East, which descended even deeper into the mountain at the same gradual pitch as the main line. Fifteen years ago, Earl had worked this branch of the mine with a small team of miners known affectionately as the Dukes of Earl. He sure missed those guys!
Those were the days when Earl was a fire boss responsible for setting charges to turn the face into rubble one blast at a time. As the truck passed through another ventilation curtain, Earl stopped and pulled it aside to bring fresh air into his destination. Nobody came back here since the accident. Fifty-seven East never yielded as much as its neighboring shafts and the death of two miners made the company shut down further excavation. Inspectors from the state never bothered to come out — taking the word of the company bosses over the claims of the survivors. Two men died instantly, crushed beneath thousands of tons of falling rock. Earl’s quick wits and experience saved the rest, when he forced them all to dive into a nearby spur. Jake and Clay were running the conveyor up at the face, when Earl heard the groaning of rock subsiding under the tremendous weight of the overburden. Earl wasn’t here to reminisce though.
Fifteen years ago, the five survivors huddled together in a natural spur created by a subterranean river long dried up. Nearly invisible from the wide tunnel floor, Earl only knew of its existence the moment he shoved his team into its dark, uncertain depths. When the rocks stopped falling and silence returned, water dripped in time with their synchronized breathing. Earl snapped a light stick and waved it around to get a view of their prison. The faces of countless quartz crystals twinkled in the green light of the glow stick. Quartz, the nemesis of all hard rock miners, shattered easily under the impact of blasting. The company geologist swore up, down, and sideways on how the conditions were safe, yet the evidence surrounded the team. By the time rescuers arrived, and the company safety boss had a good look, the entire team agreed to stand in solidarity for their fallen comrades. Nevertheless, there wouldn’t be any inspectors going down into that cavern as long as the company had enough money to buy them all Florida condominiums. Instead, the company bosses blamed Earl despite all evidence to the contrary. They demoted and assigned him to the dirty task of loading conveyers, and getting coffee for any snot-nosed kid who demanded it. On that day, he was just Earl.
When he arrived at his destination, Earl removed the lamp cable from the back of the truck. After tying the strand off on the roll cage, he plugged it into the generator in the back of the vehicle and started it up. It took a couple of pulls but the engine roared to life illuminating the fat coil at his feet. A hundred feet would serve his needs but he’d brought along five hundred feet of it just in case he needed to go deeper into the quartz cavern. In the last fifteen years since his demotion, Earl thought about something he’d seen while waiting for his rescuers. He was beyond the point of seeking revenge for the heartless way the company kicked him to the curb to save their own hides. He didn’t want to set the bean counters straight either. At the age of sixty-five, retirement became mandatory and in mining, there were no old men. No, this was about something he’d seen down in the bowels of the earth on that terrible day when his godson Clay lost his life to a lazy geologist.
For the last two weeks, Earl had slipped into the mine to prepare for his descent into the quartz cavern. Today he could finally enter unobstructed after he dealt with the bodies of the two dead men. Earl solemnly walked over to the ore loader containing the remains of the boys the company had decided weren’t worth the cost of returning to their families. The humid environment had long ago stripped them of their flesh leaving only two broken puzzles of bone. Climbing into the seat of the loader, Earl started the diesel engine and waited for its rumble to become steady and strong. Steering it away from the rubble, he drove it several hundred yards toward the main tunnel and walked back to his work area, his heart heavy with sadness.
“I’m sorry boys, you’ll have to wait just a little longer,” said Earl. His voice sounded loud but empty in the lonely hall of Fifty-seven East. Father Mulholland would be expecting the boys today, but had sworn not to tell their families until Earl showed up with them. Stacy didn’t know either, and Earl felt awful about keeping things from his favorite niece. Tonight, Clay would return to his widow and Jake to a mother who still mourned down at the chapel every day.
He stood before the shallow mouth of the spur with the bright loop of light cable over his shoulder, looked down, and saw a stone stairway descending into the cavern. Turning around he looked up to the ceiling and saw the place where Fifty-seven East had sheared it off as it continued to somewhere above. Somebody, had carved a stairway into the mountain, and it definitely wasn’t the company. The edges of each step were sharp and regular, more precise than the work of a jackhammer, and beyond the capabilities of the local tribes. Every step bore the same strange symbol on its face, — of a great bird carrying a child, as though carved with loving devotion and eternal patience. Rubble from the collapse littered the stairs nearest Earl, but beyond and below they were passable. Earl climbed over a boulder carefully and returned to the place of refuge of fifteen years past. Undisturbed by wind or rain, their boot and handprints still lay in the rock dust. The boulder beside their refuge could have crushed them but providence had deigned to give them one last smile. Nobody but Earl remained alive of the small party of men who’d seen this marvelous stairway. Nobody believed the men when they spoke about it. Sam found himself talking to a shrink down in Denver at his own expense after a little corporate coercion. Earl kept his mouth shut but the taint of the accident and crazy Sam painted the other survivors with ridicule and scorn.
Earl played out the light cable behind himself as he descended the staircase. As he rounded the corner and entered the crystal cavern with his coil of bright cable, Earl saw the dancing lights in their entire splendor. Great smooth faceted gems the size of trucks rose out of the floor and speared down from the ceiling of a cavern large enough to hold an entire cathedral. Countless smaller crystals adorned every surface, a crust of natural richness and beauty. Twinkling rainbows hung suspended in a mist, which billowed, at the lowest point on the floor. He could hear the sound of water somewhere below dripping into a pool at a slow steady pace.
Tink, Tink, Tink…
The stairs continued around the wall of the cavern, descending in a great spiral to the floor and out of sight. The drop was precipitous, but Earl wanted this more than anything, and so he adjusted his pack and continued on, playing out the light cable as he followed the wide steps. As his spool of fire wound further into the vault, the white light revealed carvings in relief along the smooth wall beside the stair. The things depicted were impossible to decipher but occasionally showed the same bird with the child. Sometimes they were flying over farmland, other times strange spires, and often there were other people in the sculpture, faces uplifted in adoration or hatred.
On the fourth pass around the cavern, the light cable was getting near the end so Earl began coiling the slack onto his arm, pulling it off the stairway in a long swaying strand. Earl stopped for a moment and took out the test kit from his pack. If the oxygen levels became too low he would have to turn back. Leaving the sensor on, he hooked it onto his belt so it would sound the alarm. As he approached the floor of the cavern, Earl used his hands to part the fog at his feet so he could walk safely. The stairs ended at the base of a ring of tall crystals which surrounded a smooth spot in the otherwise encrusted floor. Earl could hear a gentle humming coming from the nearest gem, which grew louder as he approached the ring of stone.
Something moved in the clouds at the center of the ring, but whenever the mist cleared, all he saw was smooth bare stone. As he watched, a loop of light cable slid off the stairs above him and swung across the center of the ring. Earl watched mesmerized as the cable vanished as though the stone it landed upon didn’t exist. Loop after loop of the illuminating wire fell into the stone as if into water and Earl just watched. He snapped out of his fascination when he felt a violent tug on his shoulder as something yanked the loops of wire he’d coiled into the stone. Silence except for the humming of the crystals and the scratch of cable on rock were all he heard as he continue to watch the last of the cable descend into the impossible pit.
Bam!
The cable yanked Earl off his feet by a powerful tug on the strap of his backpack where he’d tied the light cable prior to his descent. All of a sudden, he found himself holding on for dear life, as the cable pulled him inextricably toward the invisible well in the center of the ring. He tried vainly to disengage the straps holding his pack on, but only managed to release one buckle. The buckle at his waist would not disengage. For a second he thought he saw the thing, which moved in the mist. However, the image was too fleeting and as his old hands slipped off the gem-encrusted rock, he regretted how he hadn’t fulfilled his obligation to the dead young men and their families. His last grip broken, he slid unimpeded into the misty gap with a cry of fear and despair.
***
Everything hurt.
His back ached worse than the time he wrenched it hauling braces in the mine. His legs were sore and his arms felt limp and weak. He was floating in icy water in pitch-black darkness on his back. He looked up and could see what looked like stars high above, but recalled how he should be deep underground. To add to Earl’s confusion he distinctly heard crickets chirping nearby. He knew crickets often lived in caves, but usually near the entrances where they could feed from vegetable matter, which entered via weather or bats. A mile in the heart of the mountain, crickets did not make sense. An underground river must have belched him out onto the surface at some spring.
As he swam toward the sound of the crickets, he wondered how far he’d travelled under ground. His backpack and the light cable were gone, but his waterlogged clothing bogged him down and he came very close to drowning in the frigid spring water. When he finally felt something solid under his boots he reached foreword toward what he imagined would be the bank to grasp muddy reeds and haul himself bodily through the muck onto a grassy bank. He panted – exhausted — and felt every one of his sixty-five years. As he lay on the bank catching his breath he heard a very loud splash in the pool he’d just left and wondered what could have made the sound. However, when the crickets resumed their serenade uninterrupted, the warm night air and fatigue forced him to sleep.
He awoke to the sounds of birds courting amidst the branches of a very large willow tree. He lay there for a moment and idly watched them flit here and there about their business, making nests and tending babies. Earl finally sat up and looked around. He was lying on the grassy bank of what looked like a large spring. In the center of the spring, the old Toyota pickup bobbed out of place. Earl could see the light cable still attacked to the crash cage and plugged into the generator, which was no longer running. His backpack lay floating in the stream, which drained the pond. The tips of large crystals showed just above the surface of the water like ten shining icebergs in a ring. The sun was just coming over a range of tall mountains to the east and shone through snowy crags casting long shadows on a pristine meadow. It looked like pictures out of a fairy tale. Everything was fresh and green and looked new as though only made yesterday. The air was clear and bright without contrails or smog to corrupt its purity. Deer grazed unaffected by his presence mere feet away, and he could hear the sound of a cow’s lowing in the distance. Something told Earl he wasn’t in Colorado anymore!
He fetched the backpack from out of the stream and began carefully hauling on the wire until a pile of it lay at his feet. When he felt resistance, he pulled a little harder and was satisfied to see the truck drift in his direction toward the gravel bed of the creek. When the truck came within reach, he hit the release on the winch, dragged its cable to the willow, and looped it around so he could maneuver the pickup out of the pond. Crossing his fingers, Earl hit the lever and felt the truck lurch as the heavy-duty winch hauled the vehicle unceremoniously over the muddy bank and into the grassy meadow. Water poured from every seam and Earl kicked a couple small fish back into the pond before he felt his stomach grumble. A fishing pole wasn’t one of the items he’d thought to take along on his explorations of the quartz cavern. His pack contained equipment used in prospecting and enough supplies to last a week. He also carried an old revolver just in case the Harris boys gave him trouble for trespassing.
As he inventoried the contents of his backpack, and then the glove box of the pickup, he noticed something about his hands. They no longer hurt. It wasn’t just the hurt from his trip through the underground river, but also the nagging daily pain of old age, which was missing. The liver spots and knobby fingers, which were becoming arthritic at sixty-five years, now looked as young and strong as that of a twenty year old. When he went to the pool to look at his reflection, he was shocked – his face was young as well — the wrinkles all gone and lines of worry and toil erased! Where his shirt had hung loosely upon his beat up old body, it was now tight and he could feel strong new muscle beneath his clothing. Was he dead? No, the truck wouldn’t be in heaven. Earl remembered reading about Ponce de León and his search for the Fountain of Youth in High School. How had such a miraculous place remained concealed from people for so long? Earl sadly recalled the ravages of age, which took his mother just a few years ago. If only he had known such a place actually existed he would brought her to the place and tossed her in himself.
He only thought about the Fountain of Youth for a moment, because while he sat there waiting for the truck to dry, a second, smaller sun began to rise beside her brilliant sister.
Chapter 1 of Haley Cork and the Blue Door
Chapter 1 Haley Opens a Door
“I choose the girl,” said the first Keeper’s shadow.
“But the man is strong and wise,” said a second.
“The woman is brave and full of faith,” answered a third
“The girl is the one, for she is all of these things.”
“But she is just a little girl and will bend before the task,” said the third
”She will not break like the woman.”
“But she is just a child and not strong enough for the task,” said the second.
”She will not rely solely on strength like the man.”
“I cannot allow you to do this! I reject your company,” said a fourth.
The voices in the stone grumbled as one of their number departed.
“Do as you must, but do not interfere!”
Minutes became hours as the voices argued. Finally, they reached a consensus.
“Is it agreed then?”
Amid murmurs of agreement, the first Keeper’s shadow raised her voice and pronounced judgment.
“We will call the girl. She might break us Keepers, but she will be greatest of all!”
The summer was hot and dry as a tall, thin girl made her way down to the creek to cool off a bit. While she walked, she kicked pebbles into the rows of corn growing on either side of the rust red road leading out of town. Her calico tomcat chased after the stones as they skipped through the dirt, and engaged them in mock battle. Humming a tune to herself as she walked, she thought about all of the interesting things she was going to do with her summer vacation — and a few of the things she was going to get out of doing. Haley wasn’t going to help down at the store, since Momma had old Ben for that, and the shop always smelled of medicines and the farmers who came to buy them. She was going to play with her dolls, hopscotch on the station walkway, and see the fair when it came to town. She would do her best to get her friend Bonnie to come along, but Bonnie spent most of her idle time helping her own mother down at the flower shop. When they could get away, the girls walked in the nearby woods, or played down at the creek, which skirted the town of Jander’s Mill and joined with the Blue Sprankje River nearby in the fertile fields of Oldenzaal.
That sound of cicadas, high pitched and omnipresent, could be heard across the way in an apple orchard owned by the Duke of Oldenzaal. As she walked past his place, she made sure she was on the far side of the narrow dirt road, because Momma said there was something not right about the man, and frankly, he just spooked her anyway.
“Hi,” said a voice from behind a blueberry bush, causing Haley to jump in alarm. Crunk hid behind Haley because, in truth, he wasn’t all that brave.
“Hi to you,” said Haley. She was startled, but more than a little curious, her heart pounding in her chest.
A boy about Haley’s age stepped from behind the bush, rubbing his eyes with dirty, blueberry stained hands, leaving them red, blue, and a little muddy.
“Have you been crying?” asked Haley, who immediately regretted asking the question, because that was exactly what the boy had been doing. He abruptly turned on his heel and darted back behind the blueberry bush. The tomcat rubbed his body on Haley’s bare legs, pleased that he didn’t have to defend her.
“Hey, I’m sorry! Come out from behind there,” she pleaded, and after a few seconds, the boy cautiously returned from behind the bush.
“You won’t make fun of me or anything?” he asked, eyes staring intently at his dirty feet in the red dust of the road.
“No. I get enough of that in school, and I don’t reckon it would be very nice of me to do the same sort of thing to anyone else,” she replied with a grin.
“Thanks,” he responded. He was wearing a pair of stiff overalls that smelled strongly of mothballs, and he had more freckles than Haley had ever seen on anyone before. His hair was strawberry blond and sticking straight up as though it grew mainly to defy the laws of gravity.
“I’m Haley Cork,” she said, “What’s your name?”
“Johnny Flattery,” he replied, still looking at his feet.
“Do you live around here? I haven’t seen you at school” Haley noticed that Johnny was shaking a little, as though he were still frightened.
“I just moved here. I live with my Uncle,” he said, indicating the Duke’s house with a slight turn of his head.
“You live with the Duke?” she exclaimed, “You must be really brave! My Momma said he was real strange, and isn’t very nice either.”
“I don’t know anything about all that. I just got here on Saturday, straight from the funeral…” He sat down in the red dust and started crying. Haley sat down beside him and put her skinny arm over his shoulders, hoping to console him. Crunk, who was always happy to take advantage of an opportunity, jumped into Haley’s lap and flopped down, lounging in the hammock of her dress. Haley knew the death probably made the poor boy an orphan, since nobody in his or her right mind would ever send a child to live with the Duke.
“Was it your Momma, Johnny?” asked Haley gently, after his sobs diminished a bit.
“Yes. My Poppa died in the war last year, but I never really knew him since he was in the service most of my life. Momma said he was a brave man, but I don’t know how he could run off and leave Momma and me. Momma got sick this winter and I didn’t know how to help her. One day she died, and Miss Cleary told the police. Then the mean lady from the state came by and brought me here. She didn’t even let me get my books and toys and stuff. She just threw me in the back of her smelly old car, took me to the funeral, and brought me on the train, straight here. Uncle Carl stinks like cigars and talks to me like I was a stray cat or something,” said Johnny in a rush of words that came out of him all crowded together so close Haley had difficulty understanding them at all.
“My Poppa died in the war too,” said Haley quietly, while remembering the gentle, big blond haired man who loved to throw her into the sky and catch her. She still remembered his large hands, the way he talked slow, and never raised his voice. She also remembered the day Momma got the letter from the War Department, saying Poppa had died for his country. Momma had cried for nearly a week straight. Haley had to do all the chores by herself that week, and even spent time at the counter to make sure people didn’t try to steal from the store while Momma was laid up. They never had a funeral, because an enormous bomb burned Poppa up some place on the other side of the World. After her week of mourning, Momma never talked about Poppa again. She just straightened herself up and went to work minding the store saying, “Life goes on.” Haley had Poppa’s picture in her room, up on her dresser, the one Poppa made with his big hands the year she was born. Haley thought it would be prudent to change the subject before she started crying too. Placing a hand on each of Johnny’s shoulders, she turned him to look at her and smiled as bravely as she could.
“I’m going down to the creek. Do you want to come with me? There’re crawdads, and trout, and polliwogs, and the water is clean and cool. We can’t go swimming since I don’t know how yet, but we can dip our feet in and skip rocks across the old mill pond if you like,” she said with a pleading look in her eyes.
“Well…”
Johnny looked in the direction of the Duke’s mansion, and then made a decision, “Okay, but I have to ask my Uncle,” he started to get up but Haley stopped him.
“Wait a second,” she said, “Better wash your face first, because grownups get kind of funny if they see that you’ve been crying.” He nodded, and sped off toward a large white house behind imposing gates, and hedges of blueberry and hawthorn. A few minutes later, a cleaner looking Johnny returned, carrying a paper bag.
“What’s that you got there?” she asked, as he bent over with his hands on his knees panting at her side.
“I have a horse blanket and some apples from the larder, since I couldn’t ask my Uncle, because he was in his study. He told me, when I got here never to disturb him if he was in there, no matter what.”
Haley nodded and grabbed his hand, dragging him down the road toward the stone bridge that crossed the mill creek half a mile beyond the Duke’s place. The bridge looked like something you’d find trolls under, but Momma had said there was no such thing as trolls, and Momma was always right. Rising above the creek in a smooth arch, it was made of black stone fitted together tight without mortar, and looked as new as the day of its construction many years ago.
“Momma said Grandpa made this bridge before she was born. All by his self,” said Haley as they crossed it. The bridge rose high enough to give a commanding view of the countryside in every direction. Emerald green fields of wheat and corn, divided by windbreaks of tall poplar and cottonwood stretched out in a wide vista. About a mile away, the small town of Jander’s Mill nestled against the tall silos of the granary on one side, and a low hill with its radio tower and train station on the other. To the west, in the opposite direction, the fields stretched unobstructed until they met up in the hazy distance with tall snow capped mountains. The cicadas buzzed even louder, reminding her of the heat and the promise of cool water.
Haley led the way off the road on the far side of the bridge to a grassy spot next to a dam made from the same stone as the bridge. The dam was built in the same fashion as the bridge, but with stones as perfectly flat as a mirror. The black obsidian reflected back the children’s faces as Crunk admired himself in its shiny surface.
“Did your Grandpa make this dam too?” asked Johnny, as he ran his hands over the smooth black stone. He had read about this sort of work before in one of his books, but couldn’t remember exactly which book it had been in. It was a moot point since all of his books were probably in a charity box by now. The one good thing about coming to live with Uncle Carl was the comfortable library packed with just about every book under the sun. His Uncle had even said it was perfectly fine with him for Johnny to read them, as long as Jonathan, as he addressed the boy, left each book as he had found it, and didn’t remove anything from the library.
“No. This dam was made by Jander himself,” Haley replied, with a proud smile. “But Grandpa is an expert in stone craft. Some say he’s the best in the whole country. Momma says he came to the town before the War. We go to visit him sometimes at his house past Beacon Hill.”
Haley took the cloth from the bag and spread it out onto some sweet grass by the sharp bank of the creek. She flopped down onto the blanket and put her feet into the cool water. She could hear frogs croaking from the reeds that swayed lazily in a gentle breeze. One of them jumped into the deeper water of the creek with a splash as Johnny sat down beside her. Fish fry played in the shallows among streamers of algae over the smooth black stones at the edges of the creek. A water strider skated across the creek, hunting for mosquito larvae just below the gently rippling surface.
Haley loved this spot most. Her father had brought her here with Momma before he departed for the War, wearing his ill-fitting uniform of itchy brown wool. They had stayed here all afternoon, speaking on light subjects, not mentioning the coming walk to the waiting troop train, and his journey, far away, to a distant training camp on the furthest edge of the country. It had been a day like this one when he left Jander’s Mill, bravely waving to his family from the crowded coach after heavily armed men escorted them onto the train. She remembered the hard faces of those men, unhappy, but determined to do the difficult job set before them. “Just obeying orders,” were the words she had overheard one of them say several days earlier when they presented her Poppa with the draft notice at their kitchen door. On that early summer day, two years past, soldiers forced many men to leave aboard the troop train, and only one of them ever returned. Sheriff Limpet’s son Morse had taken seriously ill at the war front. His unit shipped him home for medical treatment mere days before the abrupt end of the war. It was also a day like this one last year, when the man from the War Department had delivered a painful letter. Many letters like it went to widows, mothers, and children throughout the Kingdom of New Holland.
Haley hummed tunelessly as she watched a skein of geese head toward their summer feeding grounds among numerous lakes much further north beyond the great curve of the mountains to the west. She could hear their faint honking, barely audible above the din of cicadas nearby, and the distant roar of a tractor somewhere further from town. Haley swung her legs gently, as the cool water swirled around them, and could feel the little fish nibbling at her toes. Apparently, Johnny felt the same thing, because he quickly withdrew his feet from the water. Haley giggled.
“They won’t hurt you. Just keep an eye out for Old Snapper,” she added with a mischievous grin. When he gave a frightened look, she laughed and said, “Actually he stays in the pond and is much too fat and lazy to come down here. Nobody swims in the mill pond anymore, ever since the Hutton boy drowned.”
“I never lived in the country before. Did they have blackouts here during the War?” Johnny asked her as he watched a duck feeding with its tail pointing skyward, near the other bank.
“No, the bombers never got this far inland. It’s nearly a thousand miles to Capitol from here, and the only thing we ever saw were the occasional troop trains from other towns and cities on their way to the War. My friend Bonnie once saw a Zeppelin when she was in Porter’s Crossing, but it was wrecked and on the ground already,” Haley said slowly as the summer breeze brought a cool gust of air from beneath the nearby willows. “It probably blew in from a storm.” The duck quacked angrily from the other side of the stream, occasionally hissing as she ran at Crunk, who had arrived to inspect her poorly hidden nest on the bank. If that cat had one flaw, it would be his treatment of all things small and fluffy. She called him back, and after a moment of feline longing, he scampered back across the dam and into her waiting lap.
“How old are you Johnny?” asked Haley.
“I’m ten years old. My birthday is in January,” answered Johnny.
“I’m nine, but my birthday is next Monday.”
As the day idled on, they exchanged details of their life, and when the sun had begun to near the western mountains, they had become fast friends. After parting company at the gate leading to the Duke’s place, the two agreed to meet whenever they could. Walking back along the road toward town, Haley smiled to herself. Making friends was, by far, her most favorite thing in the world.
Crowns and Castles
Haley arrived at home just in time to hear her mother calling her to dinner. The savory aroma of fried chicken called her seductively to the kitchen. Washing her feet in the masonry trough by the door, Haley scrubbed the red dust and grime from her bare toes before entering the cool confines of the house.
“It’s about time you got home, young lady. I was worried I might have to send Ben after you. You know how he hates fetching you,” called Momma from inside the kitchen. Her admonition was accompanied by Ben’s low chuckle, sounding more like a bear than an old man.
“Momma, Momma!” Haley called to her mother as she finished washing, “I met a new boy! His name is Johnny. He’s an orphan, and is really nice.”
“Ben was just telling me about the boy.”
Haley rushed into the kitchen, kissed her mother on the cheek, and ran over to an ancient icon of the Holy Virgin mounted prominently on the eastern wall. Crossing herself, she kissed it as well, and then hurriedly sat at her place at the oak table. Since it was too early for corn, the fare consisted of fried chicken and leeks, as well as last year’s dried carrots from the root cellar. Momma already sat at the head of the table, her dark red hair a perfect match of Haley’s, though her mourning had given her a single thin band of white. She was a beautiful woman, and it wasn’t just Haley’s opinion. While most of the people in Jander’s Mill had round facial features and stout bodies, she had a strong chin and high cheekbones, and she was lean and tall. She often had a warm smile on her face, and was still young enough to draw looks from the men in town when they thought she wasn’t looking. If it wasn’t for the apron she wore like a uniform, she could have been mistaken for a queen, with her exotic amber eyes. At the other end of the table, sitting on a low bench and occupying two places, Ben watched Haley seat herself with his usual inscrutable expression.
It was rather difficult for Haley to tell whether he was happy to see her or merely annoyed. With only one eyebrow, and a scar where the other one was supposed to be, he was an intimidating sight. He had brilliant green eyes under a prominent brow that threw the rest of his face in shadow. Less than four feet tall, his legs swung slowly from the bench, not quite reaching the floor. He had a very broad chest, long muscular arms, and a full black beard offsetting a completely baldhead. Ben lived in the spare room in the attic above the store, acting as night watchman, assistant shopkeeper, and occasionally bouncer. He ate all of his meals with the family, and sometimes prepared spicy, difficult-to-eat dishes when Momma or Poppa couldn’t. People said he probably came from the mountains of Swolŭnd, a nation far to the north, but since he wasn’t saying, Haley couldn’t really guess. She did know he was old, quite old. He had come before Grandpa, years ago, and everyone in town reckoned he was at least as old. The funny thing though — he didn’t look that old, and could easily be mistaken for a man in his mid forties. The few times Haley had seen him smile, he showed great, square teeth in his wide face that made him seem twice as frightening as usual. However, Haley wasn’t afraid of him anymore, ever since she had discovered Ben’s liking for chocolate.
Momma said the prayers of thanksgiving, and they ate in silence. Momma with her distant thoughts rarely said a word at meal times. Ben plowed through half a chicken without looking up, while Momma picked at her food, deep in thought. Once the meal was finished, Ben cleared away the dishes, returned to his bench and withdrew a battered old pipe from a pocket. He put it between his teeth, but didn’t light it, out of courtesy for the others at the table. Holding his belly he looked from Momma to Haley and back again, letting out a sigh that shook the table.
“That new boy is the Duke’s nephew. Sad story that one is… We’ll have to keep an eye on the lad, to make sure the Duke doesn’t bring him to any harm. The Duke’s even harder on his relations than on his enemies. The boy will need a friend, Haley,” Ben said, his deep rumbling voice actually rattled a pie tin on its shelf as he spoke.
“I think we’ll make good friends,” she replied, “We went down to the creek. He told me all about Capitol, where he lived, and how his poor Momma passed away. I think he’s happy to come to the countryside, where things aren’t quite so scary.” The three exchanged details about their day, a custom that extended back as long as Haley could remember. Haley fetched the Crowns and Castles set and played a brisk couple of rounds with Ben, while Momma talked about the people she met in the shop. Haley was getting much better and actually forced Ben to retreat at one point in the match, though of course Ben defeated her, as always, his usurper taking over the throne before she could rally the guard, leaving her king defeated. For a few moments, Ben held the squirming king in his big hammer fist as though lost in thought, but when it tried to bite him with its stone teeth, he grunted, tapped the king softly on the base, causing it to freeze with a gnashing grimace, and returned it to the box.
Crowns and Castles was easily Haley’s favorite game, but she had a hard time finding anyone to play it with her. The children her age couldn’t just buy the game in a shop because somebody who could flow stone like Ben or her Grandpa Aden crafted each board and its pieces. Haley had only met a few people who actually knew about the game and its strict set of rules. Ben reassured her about how there were plenty of people who played, and how her town was more the exception than the rule. The King’s fondness for the game was legendary, and he often used the game to settle petty disputes within the court. The board and pieces were made of the same black stone as the bridge and dam, and were so detailed it was hard to tell how they’d been crafted. There were forty-eight pieces for the defender, and thirty-two for the attacker, on a rectangular field with a castle in the center. The pieces moved of their own accord and acted out the drama establish by the players. How they did do it? Haley didn’t know, but it was fun all of the same.
Battles could last for days with evenly matched players, since a captured piece returned to its starting position after five rounds, as long as another piece wasn’t already sitting there. Even the King and Queen could return, but if the attacking Usurper were to remain on either throne for five rounds then the game would be over. The only exception to this rule was the usurper, who once taken, ended the game in favor of the defender. The most powerful pieces on the board were the Chimera, who acted in defense, and the Dragon, who could move to any place outside of the castle in a single move. Battles between pieces were never cut and dried, but instead measured by their previous success. Each piece had little bumps, which counted the number of battles won and were a measure of how much they had learned. Thus, a foot solder with five bumps was actually stronger than a dragon with none. Not every piece moved in a turn. The chimera and the dragon moved once every three turns, while the humble foot soldier moved twice a turn. The game remembered the position of pieces in an unresolved match, and returned each to their positions if they swept away by accident or childish pique. Momma called it magic, but Ben said nonsense to that. They were just fancy machines without feeling, made of honest-to-goodness stone.
“Patty,” said Ben, turning to Momma later that evening, “I’ll be in my room if you need me. Thanks for the meal,” and thus he hopped down from the bench. The floorboards of the kitchen creaked in protest as the heavy man headed for the door
“It was only chicken,” she sighed quietly. “If we get any more chickens in payment for goods, I’m either going to go broke or have to open up a poultry farm.” Ben chuckled and left. She watched through the window as Ben negotiated the steps in front of the house, heading for the center of town where he lived in a room above the her mother’s apothecary shop.
“Speaking of which — Haley, have you done your chores yet? Those animals don’t feed themselves, and I can’t have Ben doing everything. He’s been nice enough to help us as much as he has. Remember what I’ve been telling you. Tend the animals before dinner! Animals always eat first!”
“Yes Momma. Sorry. I’ll take care of them right away.”
“See that you do. Now get to it Miss Haley, before I give your desert to the cat!” she teased playfully, batting at Haley’s rump with a rolled up towel.
The Good Neighbor
Exactly a week later, Haley woke up early to tend to the animals, rising before the sun. She fed Petra the cow last, who lowed in anticipation as Haley carried a flake of alfalfa under one arm and a stool and bucket in the other. Awkwardly placing the fodder in the trough, and seating herself on the stool, Haley put her hands in her armpits to warm them before milking the cow. Petra never gave her problems as long as Haley didn’t touch her udders with cold hands. Nobody fancied getting such a shock so early in the morning. When she finished, Haley patted Petra gently and took the milk into the house for skimming.
“Good morning young lady. Chores all done? Here, give me that,” said Momma as Haley entered the chilly kitchen. She deftly skimmed the cream off the top and placed the milk in a chilled pitcher. “Are you going to help me in the shop today? I still have those boxes of herbs from New Amsterdam to sort out, and I was hoping you could give me a hand.” Momma was wearing her clean apron over the blue and white dress that was customary for shopkeepers and merchants.
“Momma, I promised Bonnie I’d come over to help her with the flowers. Can I do the boxes tomorrow, please?” pleaded Haley. Momma’s eyes softened as she nodded her assent. She suspected Bonnie’s mother would be doing the flowers while the girls played together. Grabbing a slice of bread and a hasty sip of milk, Haley slipped out of the house before her mother changed her mind.
“I want you home early today. Don’t forget!” Momma called after her as she left the house.
Bonnie lived near the train station, above the flower shop situated at the crest of Beacon Hill, half a dozen doors down from Momma’s store. After a brisk walk into town and up the hill, Haley watched the various shopkeepers opening their doors to the rising sun hanging pendulous on the eastern horizon. Crunk the cat stretched himself lazily on a porch swing that sat in front of a shop that had a sign reading “Cork Apothecary.” Stepping onto the wooden porch of the store, Haley was just about to open the door when she heard voices inside.
“He’s up to something, I just know it,” said a woman’s voice, “He sent a special courier last week, and yesterday morning the courier arrived on the train. I don’t know what to do. If what the Council says is true, I’ll lose my farm and be at the mercy of that leering weasel! The last time he tried something like this, he went after the station trade. Our farm has been in the family for three hundred years! My son Jacob got killed in that senseless War, and without a male heir, I’ll end up a servant on my own farm. I have five daughters to look after — and no husband or son to help…” Her voice trailed off as she began to weep.
“Please don’t fret, Helga. Your farm is secure. Before your son left for the war, Jacob made certain provisions to prevent such a thing. I doubt the King will allow any such breach of his subject’s trust, but even if it came to that, Aden has already settled the matter with the Council”, said Ben, as softly as he could manage, though his deep voice caused the windows to rattle slightly. “The Duke is predictable if anything,” he continued. “I thought his last encounter with Aden should have given him cause to reconsider. I’ll let Aden know your concerns.”
“Thank you, Ben” said Helga, who left the store with two of her small daughters, Olga, and Onid in tow. Haley knew them from school, identical twins that played the violin in her music class. Helga’s preoccupation with her troubles and the tears in her eyes almost caused an accident as she crossed the street, narrowly avoiding a truck on its way to the station. Ducking into the store, Haley greeted Ben at the counter, as he placed bottles of milk in the chill box at the front of the store. “Momma will be right over Ben. I’ve got something for you.”
She handed him a small package wrapped in metal foil. He gently took it from her, and looked inside. Great white teeth erupted from his smile as he examined the chocolate inside. “Thank you very much Miss Haley. What did I do to deserve such a rich reward?”
“I had it left over from Pascha, and thought you might like some. Aunt Helena sent me a lot this year,” she stated as he continued to smile. Aunt Helena was Poppa’s sister who lived in a fancy house over in the city of Wallace. The Corks were wealthy merchants who did a brisk business in textiles throughout the principality. Ben put a tiny piece in his large mouth, and while he was savoring the taste, she continued, “Well, anyway, I’ve got to head over to the flower shop to help out. See you at dinner. Bye now.”
“Well, Miss Haley, I do appreciate the chocolate. I’ll have to remember to thank your Aunt when I see her next. I’ll be making Hloth Droog for supper next Sunday evening. I hope you enjoy it. My own father used to make it many years ago. Oh, and I nearly forgot!” said Ben, who reached into his jacket pocket to remove a smooth black stone box and place it into her small hands. “Though it is not the custom of my people, I believe this is appropriate. Happy birthday!” Haley took the box and nearly jumped for joy when she saw it was a new Crowns and Castle set. Ben smiled at her saying, “I know how much you love the game.”
“Thank you Ben,” she exclaimed with a big smile. Curtsying, she left the store at a run, and continued up the hill to the flower shop where Bonnie and her mother plied a brisk trade.
The flower shop was situated directly across from the train station, between a pub and the only dress shop in town. The shop was easily the nicest looking one on the street with its red and gold trim, soft violet curtains, and imported leaded glass windows, which reflected the morning sun in a dazzling spray of colors. When trains stopped at the station, her shop would often be the first stop of travelers. A train arrived at Jander’s Mill twice a day, at mid-morning, from where it headed into the city of Wallace, and then in the afternoon, where the train retraced its path to the distant mountain villages in the direction of Capitol. The engine was a steam turbine often heard growling miles away on quiet summer nights as it climbed the treacherous switchbacks through the mountains. Haley dreamed about how she would ride the train someday to see Capitol’s towers and museums, but for the moment, more immediate concerns demanded her attention. Evelien Limpet, Bonnie’s mother, was struggling to carry a large bundle of yellow daffodils through the doorway.
“Thanks, Haley,” said Evelien when Haley held the door open for her, “Bonnie is in the back. We have to get these into water before they wilt.” Haley liked working in the flower shop more than the store. The colors and smells were pleasant, the people varied and interesting, not like the apothecary her mother owned. In Momma’s store, it was the same old faces, grumbling about increases in prices when Momma barely scraped by; bartering in exchange for goods, and running up huge tabs that they refused to pay until dragged into Council. The flower shop people paid in cash, not chickens.
“Hi, Bonnie!” called Haley, to her friend, a petite brunette behind a large bundle of daffodils, at the rear of the shop. Bonnie wore trousers and a short-sleeved shirt, much to her own father’s horror, though nothing he said could make her dress more conventionally. The boys had long ago discovered little Bonnie could fight as well or better than they could, and thus left off making fun of her for her appearance. Those who didn’t usually ended up with a black eye or bloody nose for their trouble. It didn’t hurt that Bonnie’s father was the Sheriff.
“Here to help, Haley?” asked Bonnie, but before Haley could answer, she continued. “Mum just bought way too many daffodils from the Covey farm, and if we don’t get them on display, they’ll wilt before we can sell them. The morning train will be here in an hour, so I hope you don’t mind if I don’t slow down,” said Bonnie, a harried look on her face. She was a year older than Haley, but at least a head shorter. Though it was too early to tell, she would probably take after her mother’s side of the family, and end up the shortest woman in town. Yet again, there was a chance that she would catch up and surpass them all, as her tall, muscular father had. She chewed on a lock of hair as she filled vases with water and flowers.
Morse worked beside his sister. His hair was the same light brown as his father, though his features were much more handsome. After his training in His Majesty’s service, Morse carried himself with authority, though he had never actually fought in the War, for which his mother was eternally thankful. He alternated between helping his mother at the flower shop and helping his father bring criminals to justice. His justice duties were rather sparse, since very little crime ever happened in Jander’s Mill. Thus, he spent about half his time in front of the station flirting with the pretty girls. He already had a reputation amongst the local girls in the year since his return from abroad.
“My, my, Haley! You’re looking prettier every time I see you!” he said in his deep and pleasant voice. He winked at Haley, but resumed work when his sister elbowed him sharply in the ribs.
Haley flashed Morse a shy smile. She then stationed herself on the other side of the table, and helped Bonnie cut the stems of the daffodils and place them in buckets of water. An hour later, with the last of the blossoms safe, the two girls left the shop and headed down the street to the soda fountain. As they crossed the street, the great clock on the station house chimed twelve, as the engine came to a hissing stop at the platform. The engine’s turbine wound down slowly, idling just below the level of human hearing with a deep rumble, which vibrated the sidewalk below Haley’s bare feet. Wallace was two hours away by train, and if Haley hopped aboard, she could be in the lovely city, with its numerous shops, by noon. She’d been there several times before, when he grandfather took her along on one of his trips to meet a potential customer or make a delivery.
Wallace, the Provincial capitol, nestled on the shores of Lake Veluwemeer, which drained into the longest river on the continent. Great ships found their way up the Langlui River, all of the way to Wallace. Haley still remembered the day when the King’s yacht steamed right up to the dock as they ate in a restaurant overlooking the lake. Crystal blue sparkles shimmered in its wake in the afternoon sun. The middle-aged King didn’t impress her very much, but he had a kind face, and the laughter lines about his eyes proved he had a sense of humor, though with the recent appalling tragedy, there was little for him to laugh about. He owned the largest mansion in Wallace, high atop the only hill. Though Wallace was gorgeous with its windmills and churches, Haley loved Jander’s Mill the most, because the people were nice, and the countryside was beautiful, without all of the rushing about.
As they drank soda and watched the world pass by, Haley half listened to Bonnie describing the latest automobile she’d spotted in town since the last time they met. Bonnie was more interested in cars and trains than Haley could ever be, but Haley tried to listen since that was what friends were supposed to do.
“I don’t care what you say; he can’t get away with it! After what we sacrificed!” cried the woman, over the loud music coming from the jukebox in the crowded shop. Several people turned to look, which caused the two women to talk a little quieter.
“Josie, half the farms, and most of the shops are in the same situation. Since our men folk are dead or missing, the only recourse we have is an appeal to the Council. My husband, Frederick, told me to talk to Aden if the Duke ever came sniffing around. Just like he predicted, the Duke was by my place nosing about, asking the help about my competence while running the farm, and whether there were any male relatives around. Kenneth, our horse breaker, told him to get lost before he set the dogs on him. After that, I told Kenneth to be careful, since the Duke can have the sheriff arrest him,” said the other woman, whom Haley had seen down at the store occasionally, but whose name slipped her mind. She knew Kenneth, because he was an old man who often brought chickens to the Apothecary. Momma didn’t have the heart to turn him away.
Bonnie poked Haley abruptly. “Ouch!” exclaimed Haley, “What did you do that for?”
“The new boy you told me about is out there.” Bonnie whispered, pointing her finger toward the street.
Sure enough, Johnny was walking up the street pulling a high-railed wagon full of what appeared to be vegetables. Haley grabbed her friend’s hand and dragged her out outside to meet Johnny.
“Johnny! It’s me, Haley!”
Johnny turned around to look, nearly losing control of the overloaded wagon. “Hi, Haley! Happy birthday! I made you a present, but it’s back at my Uncle’s house,” said Johnny. He smiled shyly at Haley, but kept his eyes averted from her friend.
“Johnny, this is my very best friend, Bonnie,” said Haley. Bonny blushed slightly at the unqualified praise, but she should have been used to it by now. Haley was always more outgoing than anyone else, and tended to dive into relationships with both feet. Bonnie was a bit more circumspect and less willing to trust a person at face value.
“Hi, Johnny! Doing some shopping?” asked Bonnie, and then without waiting for an answer, turned to Haley and said, “Why don’t we help him take his groceries home?”
“Are you sure your mother won’t be upset?” said Haley.
“Nope, I did my part already. We’re going over to your house this afternoon anyway. Lead on Johnny!”
Haley grabbed one side of the wagon handle while Bonnie grabbed the other, as the three headed down Beacon Hill on the road to Johnny’s house.
A rabbit scurried across the wide lawn as Johnny led his friends into the gate between two enormous black statues of rampant lions that marked the entrance to the Duke’s estate. The drive, tiled in blue stone, led through well-groomed grounds to a carriage stop directly in front of the house. Everything about the place spoke of control, with nothing out of place. A gardener toiled away in a flower bed at the other end of the iron-fenced property, oblivious to the children’s presence. Enormous locust trees framed the mansion, a white pillared extravagance of four stories, built in the fashion of those grand mansions more often found in Capitol than in a rural province. On each corner of the house stood four gun turrets, muzzles pivoting menacingly to train themselves on the children, who paid them no heed. To the right of the house a wide gravel walk led to the rear for access to the servant’s quarters and kitchen. Johnny led the girls along the path and knocked at the kitchen door.
“Where have you been, young man! We have important guests arriving, and I need those vegetables to make lunch!” A red-cheeked, heavyset woman in her fifties yanked the wagon’s handle from Johnny and dragged it into the kitchen. “Now, stay out of the way! The Master doesn’t want you anywhere around when our visitors arrive. You’ll be eating with us instead, unless you have other plans. Tell your little friends to move along — this isn’t a tourist stop! The Master doesn’t like riffraff from town hanging around.” She shoved Johnny back through the kitchen door and gave the girls a sour look as she slammed it behind herself.
“Gracious!” exclaimed Bonnie, appalled at the woman’s behavior. “She spends her free time in the pub and calls us riffraff?” Haley remembered seeing the woman stagger down the street a couple of times, late in the evening when Haley stayed at the shop to help her mother restock. Bonnie continued. “Mum would give her an ear full if she could hear Miss Lopt talk to us like that.”
“I’m sorry,” said Johnny with downcast eyes. He looked embarrassed for the cook’s behavior.
“Johnny, don’t apologize for that woman,” said Bonnie. “You can’t help it if she’s rotten.” Haley looked nervously at Bonnie, uncomfortable with her friend’s assessment of the cook.
“My room is back here,” said Johnny, indicating a building behind the house, which had low doors beside what once might have been stables. “My Uncle said there isn’t any room in the house, so I have to sleep in the servant’s quarters. He said I shouldn’t complain since I’m an orphan, and undeserving of a higher station.” He led them to a small door on the end, which revealed a single cot beside a cold fireplace and a bare wooden shelf. Walking over to the fireplace, he pulled out a loose brick and removed a small wooden figurine from a hiding place. He produced a lovely replica of Haley, in the flowered dress she had worn the first day they had met. Smiling sheepishly, he offered it to Haley, who took it gratefully, a hint of tears in her eyes.
“It’s beautiful! Did you make this Johnny? How did you do it?” she asked, hugging and kissing Johnny on the cheek before he could turn away.
“I made it this week. My mother was strong in woodcraft, and taught me what she could before she passed away. It’s all about drawing out the shapes already in the wood. Here let me show you.” Taking his penknife from out of a pocket of his overalls, he began carving a piece of hickory kindling from beside his fireplace. Almost as if by magic, an object quickly began to emerge. The locomotive from the station revealed itself, and though it was still crude, both girls could see it wouldn’t have taken much more time for Johnny to make a precise imitation of the real thing. As they continued to watch, he shaped the piece. Forming boiler, drivers, and piping, Johnny utilized the grain in the hickory to bring out the machine in intricate detail. In stunned silence, the girls watched Johnny complete the finishing touches in the brief span of ten minutes. He handed the model to Bonnie, wiped his sweating brow, and sat down on his cot. “Here, you can keep it.”
“This is amazing! I’ve never seen work this fine before,” exclaimed Bonnie as she turned the model over and over, examining every detail. Johnny blushed, and put his carving knife safely back into his pocket.
“Why don’t you come have dinner with us? Momma wouldn’t mind, I’m sure,” said Haley as Johnny walked them to the gate.
“Okay, but I have to tell Cook what I’m going to do. Uncle doesn’t seem to care what I do, as long as I’m not around when he’s entertaining visitors, but Cook gets upset if she can’t find me when she has extra work for me.” He ran back to the kitchen door, and was back shortly with a fat hand print on his face. “She said I could go,” was all he said when he returned.
Bonnie and Haley walked quietly beside Johnny, down the road that led back into town. It was close to noon, and the hot sun was beating down on the three, when an automobile nearly ran them over as it sped past in the direction of the Duke’s mansion. Haley got a momentary view of two people in the back, one fat, the other thin, but both with the same unsavory pinched expression. The car was blue and painted with the emblem of the Royal Court. A choking cloud of red dust followed the car and coated the children from head to toe. It took several minutes for the dust to settle, and a few more for them to knock it off each other’s clothing.
The corn on either side of the road was about chest high, a sea of green stirred occasionally by momentary breezes, which sent waves across the expanse. The cornfield filled the long lazy bend between the creek and the road, bordered by a dike to protect it from the brief-but-violent summer storms, which frequented Jander’s Mill. Somewhere deep in the corn a mother duck was calling out to a duckling, who was crying plaintively as it sought her in desperation. The occasional fluffy summer cloud caressed the sun, loosing a small shadow to race across the fertile fields. Out at the far edge, Haley could see the small, wiry woman she’d seen talking to Ben at Cork Apothecary this morning. She struggled with an irrigation pipe, which wrestled her back.
“Let’s go help her!” Haley urged her friends. It was hard to resist Haley’s exuberance. In silent agreement, the three bounded into the rows of young corn, taking care not to step on any of the plants. Running between the rows, they traversed the field, arriving finally at an irrigation dike, where they found the woman at a low receiving trough, trying to get a hose attached to an old but well-maintained pump.
“Do you need some help, Ma’am?” asked Haley, still out of breath from her dash through the rows.
“What’s that?” she asked, wiping her muddy hands on her worn and dusty overalls. She pushed her hair out of her eyes with the back of her calloused hands as she squinted impatiently at the three children.
“We would like to help you,” Haley responded.
“Well, I don’t have any money to give you, if that’s what you are thinking,” said the woman.
“No ma’am, we wouldn’t take it even if you were offering. We just wanted to be good neighbors.” Haley smiled sweetly at the woman, whose hard look softened as she took in the eager, sincere looks on the three young faces.
“Well, if that’s the case, help me get this hose connected and straightened out to the far corner where the corn is getting a little dry. We’re a couple days shy of rain and I don’t want to lose any crop.” She indicated the direction with her right hand, which bore a simple wedding band on the ring finger.
The girls grabbed the anaconda pipe and slowly untangled it as Johnny wrestled with the heavy nickel fitting. Once the hose was unraveled, the woman and the two girls dragged the heavy loops down the length of the irrigation dike to the threatened corner. Once the pipe was in place, the woman went back to her truck, hauled out a heavy diffuser, and lugged it to the end of the hose where she twisted it onto the end with a satisfying click. By that time, Johnny had succeeded in getting the other end onto the pump fitting. After immersing the input hose for the pump in the clear cool water of the trough, she grabbed the starter rope and pulled. The first couple of times the pump merely coughed, but on the third attempt, it roared to life, doing a sort of jittery dance on the smooth stone of the trough. As the hose began to swell, the children raced the bulge to the far end, giggling as they tumbled into the mown grass near the end of the dike near the fat diffuser. The diffuser wheezed, sputtered, and coughed, but finally issued a soft spray of gurgling water which began to fill the corner row with a trickling stream. The woman walked up to the children and looked down on them with a tired smile.
“Thank you for you help, I’m Helga Johansdottar. And you are…?”
“My name is Haley Cork, ma’am. My Momma runs the Apothecary in town. I’ve seen you a couple of times in the store,” said Haley as she curtsied.
“I’m Bonnie, Bonnie Limpet, my mother owns the flower shop in town,” she offered her hand to the woman who took it and gave a single shake.
“I’m Johnny Flattery, I’m new here. I live with my Uncle,” he offered his hand as well, but she hesitated before taking it. The look in her eyes was first one of shock and then bitterness.
“Your Uncle I know,” she said with a sneer. “He’s supposed to inspect my farm sometime this week, which is why I’m working so hard to make sure nothing is out of order. Would you three like to do me a favor and run up to the house and send my eldest, Ludmilla, out here to give me a hand with the weeding? I really appreciate your help, but I can’t have the nephew of the man who is trying to take my land, or the daughter of the Sheriff, pulling weeds in my fields.”
“Any time you need more help, just let us know,” Haley said, as though she hadn’t heard what the woman said. They followed the trough up to a house on the edge of another pond about a quarter of a mile from the field where they had laid the pipe. The house, brick red like the sway-backed old barn, sat in the center of a well-tended yard under a stately oak whose dark green leaves rustled in the breeze. A path of crushed gravel led up to a large covered porch. An old truck sat with the hood up, but nobody appeared to be working on it, despite the toolbox and tools scattered about the vicinity. Haley ran into the cool shade of the large porch while the other children waited in the hot sun for Haley to knock on the door. A frail looking girl her age answered the door, her voice a narrow whisper.
“Can I help you?”
“Your Momma wants Ludmilla to help her weed the crop. She’s down over there,” said Haley, indicating the direction with a sweep of her arm. The girl nodded acknowledgment and closed the door in her face. Moments later, a big, muscular girl in her early teens bounded out of the same door nearly knocking Haley onto her backside.
“Hi! Why did mother send you to get me?” she asked, standing mere inches from Haley and looking down into her face in an intimidating fashion. Haley recognized her as Millie the Bully, nemesis of the school Haley and Bonnie attended. Haley hadn’t realized that Millie lived here, or that Helga was her mother. “Now get out of here, before I pound you!”
The brutish girl jumped off the porch, clearing the stairs, and pelted headlong into the fields in the direction of her mother. Haley felt a strong urge to enter the woods, and thought better of walking back the way they came lest they encounter Millie again. Haley led them in the direction of Beacon Hill, the radio tower just visible over the top of a nearby stand of cottonwood and cedar.
The Blue Door
After walking through a field of maturing oats, the three arrived at the woods, where they found an overgrown stone pathway that meandered through the trees in the general direction of town. It didn’t look like anyone had walked this way for ages, and the three had to struggle against the overgrown blueberry bushes and ferns that encroached on the path. The wood was strangely silent, as though nature was holding its breath.
The path abruptly ended. A mature cedar tree had erupted through the stones, and interposed itself like a sentinel. Picking up a long cedar branch and forcing the ferns aside, Bonnie pushed her way around the tree, making a path for the others to follow. Once beyond the ancient tree, they found themselves in a small clearing surrounded by a ring of cedar trees.
In the center of the glade stood a doorway containing a large blue door on a wide stone dais. It was contained in a freestanding archway made of a smooth black stone, shot through with veins of ruby red. Here and there soft gold sparks glittered, vanishing as quickly as they appeared. To the left of the door, built into the wide doorframe, was a window, which looked out over an unusual scene, different from what was clearly behind it. Haley first mistook it for a picture, but the wind on the other side of the window kicked up the occasional cinder, throwing it against the glass with an audible clink.
Beyond the window, Haley saw an enormous red sun covering all of the visible sky. Fiery prominences danced upon its roiling surface, as white-hot aurora writhed like incandescent serpents near the horizon. Cracked white rocks surrounded a boiling spring littered with the skeletons of animals and men, who had tried in vain to drink. Smoking pits were all that remained of what must once have been pools in a creek fed by the spring. A barren black mountain rose in the distance, with the broken off charred stumps of trees in the immediate foreground. Nothing could be alive in such desolation, and Haley shuddered to think how such a place was possible. Haley’s grandfather once took her to a motion picture in Wallace, but these images were in color. They appeared so real, Haley believed all she had to do was push the door open to enter that charred and forbidding place.
The right side of the archway contained a dimly lit panel displaying a lenticular cloud of lights. Also on the panel was a shimmering image of a fiery red ball surrounded by a ring of what looked like rocks. On the inner edge of the ring, floated a tiny gray ball overlaid by a blue circle of symbols. Beneath the panel, at waist height, a stone block protruded with a human hand engraved upon it. In the center of the handprint, Haley saw a symbol of a shield with a strange bird upon it, much akin to a coat of arms she had seen in her grandfather’s house. Haley felt compelled to touch her hand to the symbol but resisted.
“Don’t mess with it, Haley,” said a frightened Johnny. He looked ready to bolt from the clearing at any moment. Bonnie though, walked up to the doorway and placed her hand bravely on the symbol. Nothing happened. Feeling around the panel with her hands, and even walking around to the other side of the freestanding archway, she finally shook her head and shrugged.
“I don’t know what it does, but we probably should leave it alone and let my father know what we found,” said Bonnie cautiously.
“This is really good work! I bet even your Grandpa couldn’t do something this good, Haley. The joints look like they were melted together,” said Johnny, who had finally summoned enough courage to examine the stone of the archway.
Haley walked up to the door and felt the wood. It was warm to the touch and she could hear a strong wind blowing on the other side. The grain of the wood looked peculiar though, almost as if were writing, instead of the annual rings found on trees. The lines shifted about as they responded to Haley touch. Her hand suddenly tingled where she touched the door, and Haley was compelled to jerk it away. It sort of felt like an electrical shock that made Haley feel weak, all of the way down to her toes. The compulsion to touch the symbol grew, and Haley had to struggle to keep from slapping her hand onto it. Walking over to the panel she suddenly realized what the lights were.
“Hey, this is a picture of a galaxy,” exclaimed Haley. The others ran to her side as she explained. “Miss Keeler showed us of pictures of them last fall. She said it’s a real big group of stars. She said our sun is in a galaxy, just on the outside of that big bulge there.” Haley touched the panel and the same electrical tingle met her finger as the display responded to her. She found she could spin the picture of the galaxy to any angle she wanted just by moving her index finger about. On the edge of the large bulge in the center of the galaxy, a tiny yellow dot blinked. Haley touched it with her finger. The red ball disappeared, replaced with a smaller yellow one, and once it looked eerily familiar. This time, Johnny spoke up.
“That’s our star system. You see the blue dot there, that’s our world, five out from the sun. I saw a picture of this when my school took me to the planetarium in Capitol city. They have a projector in a big round room that shows everything. The only thing I don’t get is our system only has ten planets in it, but there are at least fourteen are in this picture. He touched the display but nothing changed.
The blue planet was blinking, as was a white one, sixth from the sun. She touched the blue ball, and Bonny let out a gasp. “The picture just changed! It shows the trees over there, like it’s only a window now.” The sun had brightened somewhat when Haley had touched the blue ball, although she only later realized the significance of such an event. Haley walked to the other side of the window and could see Bonnie looking back at her plain as day, but there was something new on this side of the archway now. A panel, just like the first one, was on the stone, identical in every way. Haley touched the white ball. The scene through her side of the window changed immediately to a snowy expanse near the mouth of an enormous cavern. There were stones standing on their end in a circle a short distance from the window. Walking around the archway, Haley noticed the panel on the side she had originally inspected was gone, replaced by the same ruby-veined black stone.
Finally giving into the compulsion, Haley put her hand on the symbol embedded in the block. Suddenly the tingling became a torrent of strange feelings and thoughts. Haley couldn’t pull her hand away from the stone, and something inside her didn’t want her to. The Essence of the Door poured into her flesh through her small hand and met the Essence there already, mingling in an ancient reunion. She watched paralyzed, as illuminated red and blue symbols crawled across her vision. Pictures of far away places with countless blue doors flashed through her mind in rapid succession. A catalogue of history reaching back long before the founding of Haley’s world, revealed vistas unimagined. Knowledge poured into her young, receptive mind, overwhelming her with concepts and skills beyond her immediate understanding. A whirling cacophony of voices, of too many teachers, filled her innocent ears, instructing her, guiding her, leading her but not completely changing her. She then saw some people in a long sequence, each with dark red hair, amber eyes, tall and thin, ending with an image of herself. Something in Haley Cork knew the Door, knew she was now a guardian of humanity, and Keeper of what it means to be human.
The Door released her. Haley felt energized, exuberant. She wanted to sing, shout, laugh, and cry, all at once. She wanted to whirl around and embrace the entire universe. She wanted to travel from world to world, and soak in the amazing beauty of it all. Her soul hummed with revelation and enlightenment. Out there, up in the summer sky, were worlds alive and interesting. Filled to the brim with humanity and all of the other races they had encountered. Suns by the billions, each with planets, some alive, many not, were just a step away through the Blue Door. For a few seconds the wonder and awe overwhelmed her, but then a deeper, darker sensation of dread stole over her. She did her best to retain her composure as a new set of realities supplanted her own. During her brief contact with the Door, Haley learned of a war that dwarfed anything she could imagine – of a loathsome presence up in the sky, which devoured entire worlds, and destroyed all life in its path.
Neither Bonnie nor Johnny were aware of what had happened within the heart, mind, and soul of the Haley Cork they knew. As far as they could tell, she had touched the hand symbol and taken her hand away moments later, the archway and panel unchanged. The ten-year-old girl appeared physically unchanged, but an ancient wisdom occupied her mind, while the Blue Doors powerful essence seeded her flesh. Haley — always considered odd by her schoolmates, with her amber eyes and foreign features — became something vastly different inside. Taunts and insults would never again reach her, nor would fear and intimidation. That thing, which had always resided in her, which had slept from before her birth, had now awakened.
Before she did anything else, Haley wanted to test the new knowledge washing over her mind. She needed to learn whether the visions and knowledge entrusted to her were truth or a strange dream on a hot summer afternoon. Was Haley able to do what the Door promised? Would she still be the same person she was before this revelation?
Walking to the door, Haley smiled at her two precious friends, and pushed it open.
Chapter 1 of The Clockwork Soul
The Clockwork Soul
By M. Andrew Sprong
Copyright 1989-2008 All Rights Reserved.
Chapter 1 François’ Day
He didn’t remember when it all started, and if you pressed him on it, he’d just say it had always been that way. He would go to sleep in Madrid and wake up in Paris or some other city. When he looked into the mirror on those occasions, he would see a different person each time, but he was always exactly the same age and always a boy. You might think this peculiar, bizarre in fact, but by the time he was nine years of age, it was just something that happened to him. Was he borrowing the lives of some other boys, or was his soul on a round robin tour of the world? During his days in Paris, his French was superb as was his Spanish in Madrid, but it was strange, because he didn’t know either when he lived in Hamburg.
What a peculiar boy — amazing in fact! Every single morning he would wake up in one of twenty-four different places in a long and happy chain. All of the families, which called him their own, loved him and cared for him, and he rarely knew pain or sorrow. To be lucky and blessed not once but twenty-four times was even more miraculous than the nocturnal hopping of his soul. He didn’t know whose body was rightfully his and thus, he took complete possession of all of them. What were they doing when he wasn’t there? Were there twenty-four souls riding upon this spiritual carousel?
Today he was François Louis Guimbretière, a dark-haired boy who lived with his Papa and Mama in Saint-Ouen a canton of Paris upon one of the five corners of Rue Farcot. Four generations lived within the large stone house, which had weathered everything the Germans could throw at it. On the mornings he awoke there, he would milk Ravissant and take the bucket to his mother of the day and she would kiss him and tell him what a good boy he was. He would go to his school to learn all about France and play with his friends who never seemed to notice he was not the same François of yesterday. Somehow, though he could not remember what had occurred on those other twenty-three days to François, he managed to keep things straight, and nobody knew of his singular condition. Certainly, he might have confessed the same sin twice to Father Frédéric, who probably attributed the mistake to the good boy’s zeal. At noon, he would return home for his midday meal and a nap beneath the great elm beside their home. Oddly, a nap did not send his soul off into the next little boy, but instead he would awaken in half an hour, happy and refreshed. The afternoon he would spend down in François’ father’s workshop carving maple chairs for the rich and famous. When he didn’t have a customer, father would sell his furniture at the flea market behind their home, one which served all of Paris and was the pride of canton Saint-Ouen. Papa was very good at carving, but François still had much to learn.
“Give it time, my dear boy! Give it time, and you will be as good a carver as me!”
When evening came, Mama would read a story or sing a lovely song, while he curled up in her lap with a kitten in his own. When you have a cow in Saint-Ouen, you always have many kittens. When he fell asleep, he remained asleep. He did not awaken until the morning in another place, in another boy, alert and ready to start a brand new day. Tomorrow he would be Adriano Del Marco of San Paulo, Brazil, another happy and loved little boy.
“François, … François, can you tell me the name of our president?” said the lovely Madame Marie, who taught the nine years olds and more than a few of the ten years as well.
“Yes, Madame. It is President Charles De Gaulle elected last year over François Mitterrand.”
“Exactly François, that was very good! You may choose a flag pin from the basket.” All of the better flags were long gone, but François found one for the nation of Mexico. He loved the green, white, and red – colors of springtime!
A girl with ginger hair ran up to him after school. Abigaëlle lived one door down, a very exuberant young lady with an active imagination. François liked Abigaëlle very much, but it was also true, he liked almost everyone else as well. He waited politely for her to catch her breath, and when she had, waited some more for her speak.
“François,” asked Abigaëlle timidly, “if it pleases you, can you help me this afternoon with my arithmetic? I seem to be having some trouble with the columns. Every time I try to multiply, I get confused and add instead.”
“I will help you, Abigaëlle,” replied François, “but first you must help me help Papa. Is that fine with you?”
“Yes, François!” exclaimed the girl, giving him a peck on the check and a big hug as well. She then ran down the street at her usual gallop to ask her mother. François never ran home, there were too many things to see on his way. The candy maker was boiling a big vat of tutti-frutti, and if François helped her stir, she might give him a cup — hot and sticky – just the way he liked it! Every twenty-fourth day he would also walk by the mechanic, Raphaëlle, who had a tattoo of a sailing ship on his broad smooth chest. He sometimes let François sit in the driver seat of a customer’s automobile and pretend he was a racecar driver, or better yet, a pilot of a mighty rocket ship. He would issue great deep belly laughs to François’ antics. Raphaëlle kept a goat in the yard, which diligently guarded a small circle of grass around her tree, and dared any passerby, especially little boys, to trespass. Near to home, François walked past an empty lot where a house used to stand. There was a sad story about that place, but none of the adults would tell, and François was too polite to insist. Today he stopped to talk to the candy maker.
“Do you need some help, Madame?” asked François politely. The woman was older than his mother was, and beyond the age where women might have children. She was tall and thin with powerful muscles from stirring a large round pot filled to the brim with every child’s delight. The smell of hot candy often drew large crowds of children later in the summer, but in the spring, François had the candy maker to himself. She was mopping her sweaty brow with the sleeve of her dress, while dousing the flames as she kicked over a bucket of water.
“I’m sorry, François! I’ve just finished stirring and it will be another hour before I must draw the taffy. If you come by tomorrow, I might have a little to spare before I take it to the shop.”
“Thank you, Madame,” said François, with a low bow and doff of his hat. Not all little boys were polite, but you should know François was kind and courteous to a fault. Though some other boy in François’ body would get the promised candy, today’s François would not insist or beg. Begging was for the dog, the less fortunate, or Monsieur Mitterrand on the radio.
Proceeding down the street on his habitual rounds, he came across a raven beside the road. She was guarding her egg, which had fallen from a low branch and to his amazement was unbroken. He looked at a her, she at him, and there transpired between the two of them a message of mercy and compassion, whereby she hopped backwards, three little hops, and he stepped forward to pick up the egg and place it gently back in its nest. With a joyous caw, she hopped into her home even before he could remove his hand and offered him a shiny metal key, which he took and put into his pocket. He didn’t wish to upset her generosity. Later he would return her treasure, unless he found the lock to which the key fit. A raven is always a good friend to have, in times of plenty or need.
“Hello, Monsieur Raphaëlle and Madam Chèvre how are you today?” called François, over the load Turkish music coming from the transistor radio hanging from a nail on the open door. The goat did not answer, but just looked at him with her strange, alien eyes as she chewed on a mouthful of ivy.
“Is that you garçon, François? I cannot spare the time today, because I must drive and get parts. Come by tomorrow and I will give you a special treat,” shouted the burly man as he left the shadows of his shop. His arms were covered in grease and sweat, and he looked exhausted in the noonday sun. A truck stood up high on jacks behind him with all six tires lying about on the ground.
“Thank you, Monsieur,” said François, bowing again. He turned on his heel and headed past the lots for the great flee market where venders, estates managers, and wealthy homeowners traded furniture and antiques. Old men, young ladies, and pickpockets filled the market, all competing for the money of rich young men. Forbidden to enter the market by his mother, François walked on the other side of the road, until he arrived at his home and it’s squeaky iron gate.
The sun cast no shadow, high and proud above the ivy covered house. The roses were in full bloom nestled amongst bougainvillea vines, yellow flowers contrasting with soft violet inflorescence. Both types grew beneath every window to deter any casual burglar who might wander over from the Les Puces de Saint-Ouen. That bougainvillea and her long thorns could rend the thickest coat, and make a grown man weep bitterly. Such a place became a perfect hideaway for the mice from the many hungry cats, as well as for the asp from Papa’s hoe.
“Mama, I am home!” called François, as he entered the home.
“Please speak quietly, François,” said her mother from the stairs. “Grand-mère is not feeling so well today. Armelle has made soup with onions and bread there in the kitchen. Please be a good boy and go serve yourself while I tend to my mother. Make sure to save some for your sisters and your niece as well, okay?”
“Yes, Mama!”
François tossed his hat and his school jacket into the cupboard and made his way to the kitchen. Now you must understand it wasn’t a small kitchen of the sort found in so many modern houses. It was large with two stoves and a pine table in the center for cutting and preparing large dishes. The family had Armelle to cook, whom they treated more like one of their own than a girl from Morocco. She had a wild eye, which often encouraged spitting, and curses from superstitious old ladies. Add to that a lock of pure white hair on one so young, and even the culturally more astute students would walk on the other side of the street in fear she was a witch. In truth, she was by far more devoted to her faith than anyone François knew, and accepted the ridicule and shame as a burden of noble humility.
“Good afternoon, François! Are you ready to have your supper?” asked the gentle woman at a large cast-iron stove. She wore long sleeves in the smothering heat of the kitchen, which temped fate as they smoldered near the flames. One milky eye looked away from François while the perfect brown one looked at him with kindness. Despite this marring defect, she wasn’t bad to look at, but she would likely never marry or know true romance.
“Yes please, Madame”
With a large ladle, she scooped up a generous helping of onion soup into a bowl, placed a slice from this morning’s baguette, and poured melted cheese upon the whole thing.
“Let it cool a moment.”
“Where is everyone, Madame?” asked François. He was curious how nobody waited in the kitchen and why he was being served soup instead of something more fitting for the day’s largest meal.
“You do not know, François?” answered the young woman, who was quite pretty from the side where you couldn’t see the roving white eye. “I’ve told you for the last three days the same thing. Your father is helping your uncle in the country and will most likely be back tomorrow. Grand-père is back in court over that communist who commandeered his automobile. Claire, your uncle, is still courting that wealthy lady who is much too mature for him. And Célestine – well — she is unable to come to the table this day of the month. Are you satisfied, my little amnesiac? If I did not know better, you ask me this because you want to hear my voice, but it is not as lovely as your mother’s. God bless her for her devotion to Grand-mère. It won’t be long now, my sweet François. So prepare your heart for this thing, yes?”
Rather than becoming satisfied with her answers, curiosity plagued him even more, but he knew from experience, too many questions asked would be forgotten unless he wrote them in his journal. Skipping like a stone across the months of François’ life was not much different from the great trapeze acrobat high up on the wire. To look too close at the audience below would invite mistakes, insanity, and a tragic plummet to destruction.
As he ate his soup in silence, he listened to Armelle hum to herself as she toiled away preparing another meal. She must be making something to welcome Papa home. When he was nearly finished eating, he heard the gate squeak and the sound of laughter as his little niece, Mélissandre, bounded up to the door. She ran, a four-year-old bundle of exuberance, into Armelle’s waiting arms, while François’ oldest sister, Magdalèna, entered behind with a bucket filled to the brim with mushrooms.
“I am going to need a leash for that one, my friend. She’s always trying to get away. I hope your morning was good? There are so many pigs in the woods these days, maybe Papa and Claire could hunt one for you, yes?”
“They could get arrested, Magdalèna, and then how would care for your charming little girl?”
“True, so true. It is a pity the pigs get to eat the truffles while we are left with this.” She plopped the overflowing basket onto the table and sat herself down with a sigh. “Please look at each carefully, Armelle, since Mélissandre insisted on helping. We don’t want the dreaded Anamita to haunt our house, do we?”
“I will, as always. Are you finished eating, François? Please, could you leave the kitchen and go outside to play?” asked Armelle. He imagined her wild eye was twitching to the beat of unheard Moroccan drums. It always did so when she was nervous or upset.
When he left the sweltering heat of the kitchen, François exited the house by the back way, and went to his customary place beside the elm. Lying down upon the sweet clover, he looked up into the branches and watched the birds coming to and fro. The swallows did not come back this year, which made François both happy and a little sad. Happy, because they were messy and sleeping on the lawn could become hazardous. Sad, because he loved to watch them fly so swift, like the rocket ships he imagined going to the moon. Today, there were no swallows, just the sparrows and finches who stayed all year round.
As he nodded off, he thought how he was like those swallows, but he hoped he would always be able to return to François. Before he knew it, he was awake again — the ginger-haired Abigaëlle was shaking his shoulder.
“Wake up! Wake up, François!” she pleaded. He felt the warmth of her milky skin upon his, but snapped out of his reverie when he looked into her frightened eyes. He smelled smoke upon her skin, and her beautiful golden hair was singed in places. Her chemise had little holes burned into it, and tears drew sad little lines through the ashes on her face. He could hear a fire truck approaching from the station, and could see billowing black smoke rising from the tiny house next door. Struggling to get to his feet, he peered through the iron gate at the terror of flame consuming his friend’s home. The fire truck was just arriving when the roof collapsed, which took the wooden walls with it into the basement, to create a huge ball of malevolent fire rolling high into the sky – a mocking image of despair.
“Mama! Papa!” cried Abigaëlle, and François had to hold his half-naked friend to keep her from plunging into the flames to her death. She struggled like a wild animal, clawing and biting at him, but he did not let her go. By the time the men put out the fire, there was nothing left but a smoking pit in the ground and deeper still in Abigaëlle’s heart. Mama and the others of the household consoled and distracted her, as the police carried her parents’ charred remains to the morgue. Only Abigaëlle survived, awakened by her brave little terrier, Cavalier, who had gone back into the flames to fetch his dear mistress. The men found him beneath the bougainvillea, sorely burnt and terrified, but still very much alive.
They all wept together, and thus on that sad day, which began so good and bright, Abigaëlle became a Guimbretière, a foster sister under the same roof.
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Haley Cork and the Blue Door
