episode FORTY-SIX
Fetus in Fetu.
The
two stood staring at the sleeping encampment, two tall men, but one so tall as
to be called a giant. Both men were marvelous physical specimens, with hardly
an ounce of excess fat between them. A massive blue moon stood in the sky,
bloated and eerie, but beautiful, half of the celestial orb obscured by tall
mountains. The men stood staring, looking away from the encampment on the plain
and up, blinking at the moon. For many moments they stood staring at the strange
blue moon. Finally, the giant looked down at the smaller man and smiled.
“I
am remembering, everything,” he said. “It is coming back. Mostly. Or different
versions.”
The
other man did not look up at him, but turned his eyes away from the moon and
looked across at the distant fire, and then could not look away from the
encampment.
“This
is High Vale,” the giant said. “Was it a game I used to play? I remember, but
no, I seem to remember...or I...forget.
It was a different life. But that doesn’t make any sense.”
The
shorter man lifted his finger to his lips, glancing up at the giant.
The
giant, grinned, nodding effusively, holding his hands over his mouth. It seemed
they had been through this drill before, or something similar, maybe in another
life. He remembered his real life, or his old life, or his life just before
going through that circle of light. He remembered two circles of light, the
first one—was it sparkling green? Or blue? But the one they just passed
through—how long ago had that been? A year ago? A lifetime passed? A lifetime
past? Or had it only been a few seconds ago? Or maybe he was only remembering
moons, two moons, here, in this world. Wasn’t there another moon, here? Not in
the sky right now, but a much smaller moon...? That was right wasn’t it?
“I
am lying right over there, by that large fire,” Stacey Colton said, pointing to
the fire and figures sprawled around it, only fifty yards away. “I can feel me.
I am dying. Right now. That is why she brought me here, for this. To save me.
To save us. So that I can finally die.”
“Let’s
see, I remember, Stacey? Yes, Stacey. That’s a girl’s name, you know. But, Stacey
I don’t know what you are talking about, man, you are talking crazy,” Joshua
Bouwer said, doing his best to keep his voice at a whisper, but even at that volume,
he was speaking louder than most men shouted in the act of losing their temper.
A dog barked in camp. “It seems you are standing right here, not lying over
there.”
“Joshua,
please,” Stacey said, without looking away from the encampment.
“Sorry,
I’m sorry, I forget,” Joshua guffawed, covering his large mouth with his extremely
large hands.
Not
looking away from the fire Stacey reached up and patted him on the arm.
“Why
are we standing out here naked?” Joshua said, in his normal voice, hurting
Stacey’s ears, it was that loud.
Several
dogs barked in the camp.
“I
guess I better go in,” Stacey said, talking as if in his sleep. “I better go
before you bring the whole encampment awake and get us killed before I can get
to me.”
“I
don’t want to go in there naked,” Joshua said, stage-whispering, keeping it just
quiet enough that no dogs answered in the night.
“Wait
right here, and after I’ve talked to them, I’ll call for you, or send someone
out with a blanket, or some clothes, though I doubt they will have anything
that will fit you,” Stacey said, walking forward, toward the camp in his somnambulate
shuffle.
“Don’t
take too long, it’s chilly,” Joshua said, finally remembering to cover his
private parts. He hunched over, and shivered. Then he glanced to the side.
Funny, he didn’t remember that little tree standing right there, ten feet away.
In the darkness, the little tree looked beautiful, shimmering, traced in faint
silver light. And a very large fruit dangling there, nice as you please, right
on the edge of the tree’s slender foliage, plump and juicy-looking, right
there. How nice, free fruit, kind of fruity welcome basket. Welcome to High
Vale.
Joshua
distantly remembered something about this, but what? His mouth watered. The
fruit looked like a pear, but kind of boxy, lumpy, kind of like a mango, or
even a pineapple, but it looked good, no, it looked...good. The fruit looked...warm.
He shivered, and took a step toward it, his arm automatically lifting. But he
stopped, and looked out, and he remembered tall grasses waving slowly in the
breeze, a beautiful day, and for a moment it was as if he looked upon that
bright daylight now, but even so, it was the middle of the night, and it was
chilly, and he was hungry, poor Joshua was always hungry, and there was what
looked like a juicy pear, hanging right there, just two steps, and done. Boom,
pear gone, in Joshua’s belly, that is all it would take. But why did he feel a
twinge of...warning? There was the
invitation, a memory of sugary juice filling his mouth, but also that cloudy
warning circling his head. He moaned, softly, and took another step, fingers
twitching, hands raising.
Stacey
strode forward in the moonlight, his eyes heavy-lidded, not noticing the sharp
rocks poking his feet with each step. He aimed toward the fire and walked
directly in that direction, stumbling over rises in the land, but he knew that
just over there is where he was
supposed to be. This was his destiny.
Everything
he had lived up until this moment, it was for now. In this glowing blue light,
he would finally meet his fate, thank God, oh thank God, this was such a better
choice. He had been right on the point of making that grim decision, the one he
never wanted to make, but was always drawn toward, the very choice that seemed
inevitable.
He
had not had a particularly pleasant life. He must have been clinically
depressed, but he had never thought to ever talk to anyone about it. His life
had been a slow, steady sadness, with short, crisp periods of sharp,
jagged...almost grief. That probably
wasn’t the right word. But that’s what it felt like, mourning, as if he
constantly wept (without actually crying, he rarely wept) for something missing
in his life. The sadness, the grief, it was all on the inside, buried deep, permeating
every aspect of his sad life.
He
felt that the best part of him was absent, that he knew it was there, that it
existed, if only somewhere, but it had never been with him—it should have been
with him, it was meant to be there, but it never was. And he had absolutely no
idea, throughout his life, what these thoughts meant, but he always thought
these thoughts. He always missed...something.
He always longed for that someone, himself.
It
was almost as if he knew he had a twin brother, out there somewhere in the
world. They had been separated at birth. Sometimes, in dreams, he felt he
caught snatches of that other life force, that other him, his twin, little glimpses of that other, better life,
that happier person. Sometimes the miniature visions were so distinct, so
clear, poor Stacey felt as if he might be going crazy, or had always been
insane, seeing things in his head. For there was always a movie running in his
head, and the hero of this movie was his other him, his missing twin, and that
guy was like Indiana Jones, or a courageous Henry Rider Haggard protagonist,
journeying, adventuring, fighting, and loving. The missing twin was a full man,
whereas Stacey was only the shadow of a man.
In
his youth, Stacey had toyed with the idea of becoming a boxer, he had even
trained for it, but then he had dropped all of the practice, the whole idea, in
his early twenties, because that dark premonition of hitting someone, striking
another person—Stacey just never wanted to do that. It was too much. But he had
such clear images sometimes, of fighting in the ring. He could almost feel his
fists pummeling, crushing, driving an opponent down. He felt the incoming blows,
sometimes, knocking him back, smashing into his left eye, and he could feel the
ground rising, the floor striking him, and that electric cushion of non-feeling.
And he decided that it must be the twin. The twin had become a boxer, while
Stacey had stuck to his art.
Stacey
had never even had a girlfriend. Oh he wanted one, desperately—he yearned for
true love. But he felt that there was just too much of himself missing. In all
his thirty years of life, he had never gone on a date. He was the
thirty-year-old virgin.
And
now he was here, in High Vale, a new world where anything was possible, and he
is marching toward his destiny, where he will finally be made whole. The two
pieces of him will now come together.
He
thinks of the three creatures, his tormentors, left behind in the other world.
And he smiles, marching in the night, feet moving him toward that fire, where
he will finally know what he has always known. Before, it had been a fancy, but
now he strides toward reality.
He
had cast off the dark trinity, the jack-in-the-box nightmare, Bloody Marty, and
Hissin’ Lewin, Sewey the slimer, and he smiles in the dark, drawn as a moth to
the flame. He is free of the dark world. Yes, he realizes he had met all these
grim creatures before, in other carnations, other bestial forms, sometimes
Bloody Marty had been Bloody Mary, but just as ambiguous in gender, and
sometimes Sewey was a very piggy man, or at least a little more manlike. But
Hissin’ Lewin was never anything but the genderless thing.
“I
am really free,” he says, not feeling the chill of the night.
Dogs
answer him, rushing forward, snarling and barking, baying, but when they
half-encircle him, they suddenly smell him and turn tail and flee, crying out
in whimpering terror, dashing madly away with tails between legs. And Stacey
marches forward, feet bleeding, gaze fastened upon the fire, and he is now only
a hundred feet away from his destiny.
Small
men rise before him, brandishing knives and spears, clubs, but they catch one
glimpse of the tall, naked man striding purposefully forward and they fall
back, as did their hounds. The naked man glows in the darkness.
“His
ghost,” the small, dark men begin to whisper to each other, pointing, drawing
away, their teeth chattering in terror. They had come flying from their
bedrolls, from their wives and children, and now here striding amidst them came
the terror of their worst nightmares.
“The
Pugilist’s ghost! The Pugilist’s ghost!”
And
now Stacey stood at the fire, the world whirling about him. He gasped for
breath. He thought he must be suffering another asthma attack, but this was
something else. He stands at the edge of the fur bed, pelts spread out before
the fire, and the two huddled shapes beneath the fur blankets. One of the
shapes is a slim woman, with red hair that shimmers in the firelight.
Stacey
stares at her. Doesn’t he know her? Hasn’t he dreamed of her?
The
red-haired woman snored loudly. And then she suddenly came awake. She half rose
and checked on the other shape, beside her, she did it lovingly, stroking the
other figure’s hair, and then slowly, she turned her head and looked at Stacey,
met his eyes. And she barely managed to suppress her scream, throwing her wrist
across her mouth. She sat up, and Stacey saw that she was dressed in some kind
of slippery black catsuit, like spandex, or silk—no, that was not it,
strangely, that seemed to be her skin.
And he noticed that, uncannily, she was not fully human. She looked like a
living doll. Lovely. Beautiful, haunting, and she stared at him as if he were a
ghost.
“Emily,”
Stacey breathed.
“Stacey?”
she said, and then glanced to the form beside her. She bent over the figure,
leaning close, placing her face upon the other’s, and then she sighed.
“Oh,
I thought, just for a moment, that you had—” But she cut off, and sat up again,
pulling the furs up about her neck.
Then
a strange shape came scuttling over the furs, right across the two figures
beneath the blankets, and rose up on its hind legs. Stacey started, his eyes
widening, feeling surprise for the first time since he had come through that
glowing portal.
“Michael?”
he breathed, knowing the creature, despite its size and shape and appearance.
The
creature came forward then and it was the most natural thing in the world to
catch it up in his embrace as it launched forward, and Stacey laughed with all
his heart, as the little meerkat man hugged him about the neck, chittering.
Little winks of light shot out from the little man and circled him briefly like
fireflies.
“You
are well! Stacey, you are well!” Michael chittered, his cold little nose
nestling against Stacey’s neck.
“I’m
fine,” Stacey said, still laughing, noticing that others were gathering about
the fire, it seemed hundreds of silent shapes, drawing close. For the first
time in his life, he was free, he was okay, and the air rushed forward to greet
him, to fill him. “And Joshua is here, too, we can send for him.”
“No,
no,” Michael chittered, drawing back in Stacey’s arms, peering into his eyes. “I’m
sorry, Stacey, but Joshua has died.”
“I
know, I know,” Stacey said, head spinning. He felt dizzy, because all of this
was so familiar, and yet, so entirely strange. He knew everything while knowing
absolutely nothing. “But he’s back, it is Joshua, only different, younger, and
taller, if you can believe it.”
“That
is not possible,” Michael said, taking on a strange blue glow, very much like
the color of the blue moon.
“It
was the little girl, I forget her name, but she came and got me and Joshua. She
said something about breaking rules and getting to Joshua through me, and then
she took us to the park where it says Jack on the tree, and we opened up a
portal, and just came through—or I don’t know exactly when it happened, years
ago or just now, or maybe it hasn’t happened yet.”
“I
have not met this little girl, but I have heard plenty of stories,” Michael
said. “Please, take me to him. Take me to Joshua.”
Just
then there was a terrible scream, ringing through the night. The whole
encampment, which had begun to hum with excitement and fear, suddenly went
quiet. The shrieking scream went on and on and was the terrified bellow of
someone with incredibly powerful lungs. There was no mistaking that loud,
irritating voice. But nobody had ever heard Joshua scream like that—possibly no
one in the history of the world, or any world, had ever screamed like that.
Starting,
Stacey turned and looked out at the night, eyes wide in shock.
“I
know that voice! It is him!” Michael
cried in a furious chitter.
“Oh
shit!” Stacey barked, “I forgot, it’s the tree, the fruit, the High Vale
initiation! In the belly of the beast!”
“The
Great Serpent,” Michael chittered, leaping from Stacey’s arms, and he opened up
great flaps beneath his arms and soared up into the air, out into the night,
looking like an illuminated bat, leaving a trail of sparkling moon dust behind
him that slowly dissipated and dissolved.
Out
in the moonlight, a very tall shape sped furiously, pumping its long arms and
legs, and something tremendous, just behind the fleeing shape, gave pursuit.
Incredibly, the bellowing scream went on and on. There may have been a pause in
there for breath, but it didn’t sound like it.
Someone
threw a blanket over Stacey’s shoulders, and he looked to see Emily standing
next to him, looking almost as naked as himself in her shiny black catsuit
skin. At moments she seemed entirely human, but in the next instant she seemed
completely inhuman. It hurt Stacey’s brain, looking at her.
“What’s
going on?” she asked, doing her best to not look at him as he arranged the
blanket over his neck and shoulders to best cover his body.
“It
looks like Joshua ate the High Vale fruit—again. He should have known better,
as he’s been here before. Except,” he said, thoughtfully, shaking his head, “he
has never really been here before, just like me, but it seems as if we have. I
don’t know why I didn’t see the fruit, like I did before, when my...other me
was here. I, I mean he, chose to
stand and fight.” It surprised Stacey, remembering that, as he would have never
faced that monster snake. He would have run, and he was not the best runner in
the world, especially when the asthma kicked in, and nowadays, the gout. He
flexed his feet, remembering the terrible gout pains jabbing up through his
ankles, his swollen feet, and now, other than the cuts on the bottoms of his
feet from strolling barefoot through the High Vale world, his feet felt
wonderful, no trace of swelling or arthritic anguish.
“Whoever
is out there,” Emily said, “they are running like the wind.”
“I
see you, Pugilist!” thundered a terrible voice above Stacey’s head, he whirled,
blanket flapping, to stare up into the gruesome visage of a terrible creature.
“Crood,”
Stacey babbled, body going rigid in shock.
“I
see you!” Crood said, still marked with that tell-tale bump the size of a goose
egg in the center of his forehead, the giant pointed three massive index
fingers at Stacey, and he certainly looked angry, but there was something else
showing in that massive slab of pale face, something like...joy—and then the monster blinked and
looked down by the fire. “I see you Pugilist!”
The
crooden warrior giant glanced with
puzzlement between the standing Stacey, and the figure under the furs. “I see
you Pugilist, there! I see you Pugilist, there!” Comically, the monster kept
looking back and forth, jabbing the fingers on his right hands at Stacey, and stabbing
the fingers on his left hands at the figure under the furs.
“It
is okay, Crood,” Emily said, “it is Stacey, he’s here to help—Stacey.”
The
six-armed giant monster looked back and forth between Stacey and Emily, blinking
his great bulbous eyes, puzzling over her words.
“What?” belched Crood, staring at the little
woman automaton, incredulously.
“Oh
I don’t know what I’m saying,” she sighed, cuddling in close to Stacey,
wrapping an around his waist, and then she suddenly pushed him away as if he
had pinched her on the butt. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“It’s
okay,” Stacey mumbled, blushing as if he had actually pinched her on the butt.
He would never do that, of course, although the image of taking up great
handfuls of her, yes, those images were present, and he was grateful for the
blanket to cover himself. It had felt like heaven when she put her arm about
him and cuddled in close. In truth, even standing close to her was making him
light in the head—yes, Joshua was out there, running from a nightmare, but
Stacey couldn’t help but swoon with Emily near him, in that catsuit skin. He
felt terrible about it, but there it was.
Joshua
ran past, apparently circling in closer, giving the serpent a good chase, from
the sound of it (and at some time in the past few moments he had ceased
screaming to concentrate more fully on sprinting). Michael soared past ten feet
above the ground leaving bursts of light beneath him, seemingly doing a carpet
bombing between the fleeing Joshua and the pursuing god of this world. He must
be trying to distract the monster from devouring poor Joshua, newly born into
this world, and now facing—this. Then
they heard the passage of the serpent’s massive body, undulating in the night,
some of the powerful coils sliding perilously close to the camp in passing.
“Who
come!” shouted Crood, striding forward to stand just before Stacey and Emily,
facing out where the horror hunt progressed. The crooden warrior flexed all the
great muscles of his many arms and his massive torso, and he roared a challenge
into the night. There were not many creatures in existence that would not feel
cowed by that roar.
“I
might not want to be challenging what’s out there,” said a small man with a
bulbous nose as he strode into the firelight to stand near Stacey. Stacey
recognized one of the Men from Mars, except that he was different, this was not
one of them, not exactly, but enough that Stacey received flash images from
another world. A mass of feathers stood up and all over the little man’s head
like hair, and flashed iridescent in the firelight.
“Shut
it,” Crood snarled, glowering back at the little man. And he roared his
challenging bellow again, throwing back his bulbous head, with what appeared to
be more than half his head cracking open to issue the roar. That mouth opened
larger than any lion could have managed. It was the kind of mouth that could shred
a large male lion into pieces, with only a few bites.
Stacey
winced and Emily threw her hands over her ears.
And
then Joshua came pelting into the firelight—he looked like a naked professional
basketball player, thin, lithe, and furious—charging directly at Crood, who
suddenly smiled delightedly and cast wide all his arms.
“Doggy!”
Crood bellowed, and Joshua threw himself forward into that monstrous embrace,
and Crood swung the giant man about—Joshua looked like a plush stuffed toy in
the crooden warrior’s arms.
But
then the serpent came.
All
the Mars folk—they were like rough gypsies, and blackguard highwaymen—threw
themselves face down, except for the few that fell like victims of poleax
backward. The ground rumbled, and it sounded like the approach of a diesel
freight train.
Stacey,
otherworldly memories flashing, crouched down, his fists up, although he knew
this was silly. Emily threw herself backward and covered the sleeper’s body
with her own.
The
serpent god wyrm, Oros Borealis came shrieking in, furiously loud hissing more
piercing than three steam locomotives in Olde London, as it rose up, spreading
its great hooded wings, looking like a king cobra, only a hundred times too
large, its face split wide with long fangs extending. It rose twenty feet above
the twelve-foot flat crown of Crood’s bald head.
Crood
stood cradling Joshua, face slack with terror, and Joshua gripped tightly to
Crood’s neck, his eyes clenched shut.
“You
would deprive me of my jussssst food, crooden
warrior?” the great serpent hissed, swaying hypnotically in the moonlight.
“My
doggy,” Crood blubbered, actually leaking tears as he stood before the serpent,
shielding Joshua’s body with his own vast back. And with a great gush the poor
crooden warrior released his bladder, it boiled down his legs like a burst dam,
and flowed into the fire where it sizzled and popped, casting out yellow
bellows of steam.
“Your
might issss nothing, crooden, before
your God of Violence and War,” the serpent hissed, and even its voice paralyzed
the assemblage. “I will not assssk you again, turn over my prey.”
“No!”
Crood blubbered, crouching down, attempting to hide Joshua’s body with his own.
“My doggy! Not food! No eat doggy!”
The
snake hissed even more loudly, rearing up for its final, fatal plunge into the
meat before it.
“No!”
Emily shrieked, and there was Stacey, standing in his briefs, black shillelagh
spinning in his hands, the side of his head gory in the moonlight and
firelight.
Stacey,
newly arrived in this world, gawked at his doppelganger veteran, and was able
to see the man’s skull glinting red in the light of the campfire, the eye gone
on that side of his head, the bone of the eye socket glaring and hollow.
“You
will not harm Joshua, my friend,” Stacey said, his one good eye glaring, teeth
set in a rictus snarl.
“Ahhhh,
Pugilisssssst,” Oros Borealis hissed, suddenly contracting his hood, lowering
his face to more closely examine his favored one. “What have you done to
yoursssssself?”
“Believe
it or not, it was my wife,” Stacey said. Emily, standing at his side, propping
him up from behind, snorted.
“Yessssss,
that one,” Oros Borealis hissed, now sounding conversational, and almost
friendly. “Although if I am not misssstaken, sssssshe wasssss not quite your
choicssssssse, wasssss sssssshe?”
“No,
I guess you could say she pretty much raped me,” Stacey said, actually
chuckling. “And then she tried to murder me.”
“Ssssshe
believesssss herssssself a god, and attemptsssss to wresssst thissss world from
me. Ahhhh, and what issssss thisssssss...?” the serpent hissed with interest,
looking from the wounded Stacey to the healthy, younger model of the exact same
man.
“The
little girl brought me here,” Stacey said. “To save him. And to save me. And to
save Joshua, as well.”
“Ahhhh,
Manda, that little wretch who meddlessssss in my world,” Oros Borealis hissed.
“But I ssssssee what sssssshe mussssst have planned, and perhapssss sssshe countssss
on a little cooperation from me.”
“You
and I have an understanding,” Stacey said, now flagging, and it became more and
more obvious that Emily, holding him from behind, was the only reason he was
yet upright.
“Ahhh,
Pugilissssssst, do not misssstake me, I love thee, little heart of fire, but I
owe thee nothing. Our accountsssss are long sssssettled. In fact, when I
consssssumed the Vikingssssss, that was a little bonussssss, to show my
affection, for thee, and only thee, Pugilissssst.”
Michael
came soaring in to land on Crood’s shoulder, and he stood tall (relatively),
holding onto the giant’s ear hole to steady himself.
“Another
one, yet another one that eluded me! I would sssssuppose that the young
blassssphemer, Jack, wasssss pressssent, ssssave that I know he issss sssssafe
from me on another world. But I weary of thissss, and thosssse thingssss the
meddlerssss touch, Maulgraul and Manda. I will leave thee, Pugilisssst, but I
cannot refrain from blesssssing thee again, Beloved. Enter the pool,
Pugilisssst, with the doppelganger, and after, invite anyone elssssse that
issss brave enough, or foolisssssh to enter with you. But be warned, anyone
entering my ssssssacred pool ssssshall be changed.”
And
the serpent, amazingly, bent back on itself and began to vanish, its vast body
following in undulation.
The
crowd of highwaymen sprawled upon the ground cried out as one and scrambled
away as a great mouth appeared in the soil near the campfire, the ground
withdrawing like living flesh to reveal a glimmering water source, opening
wider and wider, extending and expanding. A great shining water flowed in that
opening crevasse, a pool opening further until it actually swallowed the
campfire in a great hissing mass of steam, revealing itself in the shape of a vast
eye, thirty-five feet or more across from corner to corner, perhaps fifteen
feet across at its middle.
Stacey,
the doppelganger, went to the wounded version of himself, the self he had
always known existed, somewhere in some other time and world, and he took up
his wasted self in his arms, lifting him quite easily, and moved away from
Emily.
“What
are you going to do?” Emily demanded, walking by his side, pushing her fingers
through the wounded man’s hair. The barely breathing Stacey blinked at her with
his one eye, but he seemed beyond words now, dangling limply in his younger
self’s arms.
“It
is okay, I remember this part,” Stacey said, nodding to Emily. Then he paused
at the very corner of the great eye. He looked back at Emily and smiled. “I am
so glad I finally got to meet you. I knew you existed. I always knew it.”
And
then Stacey stepped down into the water. It felt as if there might be steps
leading down, or something like a ramp, but he strode purposefully into the
waters, which were cool, but much warmer than the chilly air. And he looked
lovingly at his wounded self, and his eyes welled with tears, for this was the
self he always wanted to be.
“I
love you,” he told himself.
“I
love...” his doppelganger breathed.
They
went into the middle of the waters, and Stacey was just able to touch the
bottom, on his toes, with the water lapping at his chin, holding Stacey his
twin up in his arms, until the bottom of the pool dropped out from beneath him,
and the Staceys were sucked down into a whirlpool, bubbling, where there was
light, and heat, and they spun faster and faster, Stacey held onto Stacey, until
the current ripped them apart, and they flowed, sometimes back to back, other times
head to toes, but they bubbled and churned, and the waters sucked them deeper,
and deeper, identical twins.
Emily
stood at the edge of the bubbling waters, as the surface writhed and frothed,
and steam burst like a gasp above the eye, and the whole thing winked, throwing
dirt and rocks, and Emily was knocked off her feet, and she tumbled away from
the eye, and then came up, and she crouched, readying herself to dive in, to
save the men she loved, but Joshua was there, pulling her back, and Michael was
there grasping her other arm, and she fought them, at first, but then she
calmed as the waters calmed, and the eye again winked, once and slowly, and
then it was a pool of glistening waters, and the surface calmed more and became
gentle, reflecting the light of the last edge of the blue moon, the Honey Moon.
“Can
you see anything?” Joshua said, getting up close to the edge of the pool and
peering in. “Should I go in to see if I can find them?”
“Do
not,” Michael cautioned, poised over the edge of the water, staring into the
dark depths. “If you are to enter, Stacey must invite you. It is what the
serpent said.”
“It’s
good to see you, brother,” Joshua said, smiling sweetly at the little meerkat
man.
“It
is good to see you, my brother,” Michael chittered, light emanating from his
body.
Dasher
came up to the tall man and beamed up at him.
“Dasher!”
Joshua burst, hurting every ear present. “I remember you, there at the end! You
tried to help me, when we saved Wolf the wolf!”
“Aye,
I tried. You were some amazing beastie,” Dasher said, “no offense, giant, no
offense!”
“No,
I know, I wish I was still the ram dog, I don’t think I ever enjoyed food the
way I did then,” Joshua said, grinning joyously, warmly shaking hands with the
little highwayman.
Michael
scampered up Joshua’s leg and the tall man, wrapped in a blanket, seized the
little meerkat man and swung him up to his shoulder. Crood, the crooden warrior giant, stood watchfully
over Joshua, smiling down, reaching out one of his monstrous hands, but not
quite patting Joshua on the back.
“Did
you realize that you are black, Joshua?” Michael chittered.
“Yes,
Stacey told me, on the other side, isn’t it wonderful?” Joshua said, bellowing
laughter. “I wish I had a mirror. Do I look like Michael Jordan?”
“No,
not much,” Michael chittered.
“I
am so happy, now,” Joshua giggled. “All my dreams have come true.”
“Yes,
you always wished you were black,” Michael chittered.
“Yes,
or American Indian, that would have been the best! Ooh, or maybe Chinese,
wouldn’t that be cool? Of course, Indians from India are great, do you think
they would let me change, like every week or so?”
“I
doubt that is how it works,” Michael chittered.
“But
don’t you like being a...what exactly are you, Michael?” Joshua said, looking
Michael over intently, studying him.
“I
do not know. But I am content. I suppose I was a little insulted at first, that
the system chose to interpret me this way, that I had no choice in the matter,
but honestly, I love raccoons, and meerkats, flying squirrels, and hobbits, and
really, all of the light, it is wonderful, plus I love the fireworks, and the
soaring from tree to tree, and healing people, and I love it that I don’t have
the canes any longer, just these,” he chittered, displaying his drumsticks.
“Can
you lay down a beat?” Joshua said, grinning, giggling.
Michael
rapped him a couple of times upside the head, and Joshua held up his hands.
“I
know, I know,” he said, “not a good time. Maybe after Stacey is back, then we
could make some tunes, wouldn’t that be cool?”
Michael
rapped him once again, just for good measure, and it actually made an
appropriately loud bongo sound.
“Do
you think my head is hollow?” Joshua queried, and then bellowed laughter.
“Funny!”
Crood bellowed, and their loud irritating voices were oddly matched, and
Michael refrained from rapping Joshua upon the head again. He just barely
managed to contain the blow.
“How
long have they been down in there?” Emily whispered, kneeling at the edge of
the pool. The surface was now entirely still. Stars reflected perfectly, but
the Honey Moon was now beyond the mountains.
Crood
reached down and scooped Joshua up in three of his arms, and plunked Joshua
down upon his own shoulder, holding him much the same way that Joshua held
Michael, still riding upon Joshua’s shoulder. The meerkat man chittered with
mirth, he was actually riding upon the shoulders of giants, upon giants.
“Something
is rising,” Michael said, peering into the pool from the great combined heights
of both Crood’s and Joshua’s very tall shoulders.
Emily
moved back a bit.
A
body rose to the surface, face down.
Emily
made as if to enter the water.
“Wait!”
Michael called from above.
And
Stacey lifted his head, slowly, from the waters. He pushed back the wet hair
from his face and glanced about wildly for a moment, then stood abruptly so
that the water was at about his chest level, and he bent forward and vomited up
great gouts of clear water. He finished coughing, clearing his lungs loudly.
Then he glanced up and met Emily’s eyes, and he smiled.
It
was definitely Stacey, except that he had two good eyes, only with a very large
and very deep scar that ran from up in his hairline, down over his forehead,
through his left eyebrow, and then down through his cheek all the way to his
jawline. But it was Stacey, and it was obvious that he knew Emily.
Stacey
reached out his hand to Emily, as all those watching were quiet, not making a
sound. Emily grasped his hand and tried to aid him in rising from the waters,
but instead he pulled her toward him.
“Join
me, Emily Brontë,” Stacey said, and she resisted him, at first, but then,
staring deep into his eyes, she allowed herself to be drawn into the waters.
“Remember,
Stacey,” she said, “I am but the template of the woman. I am not the woman.”
“Don’t
worry, Emily,” he said, “you can breathe under these waters.”
“I’m
not worried,” she said, smiling, “as I don’t really need to breathe, Stacey.”
When
she was up to her hips he pulled her to him, and he grasped her to him, and
their lips met, and slowly, they submerged, and the waters covered them.
“I
think we can go now, and rest,” Joshua said. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
“Yes,”
Michael chittered. “Set out some blankets for them, and build up a fire near the
furs again, but perhaps on the other side. We can return in the morning, I
think.”
“Funny
little people,” Crood said.
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© Copyright 2016 Douglas Christian Larsen. Vestigial Surreality. All Rights Reserved by the Author, Douglas Christian Larsen. No part of this serial fiction may be reproduced (except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews) or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher, Wolftales UNlimited, but please feel free to share the story with anyone, only not for sale or resale. This work is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental (wink, wink).
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