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{Quest is a work in progress Quest
Stranger than fiction
Charlie Funderbaugh sat in his 1989 Toyota Corolla
finishing his cigarette and listening to the end of the first track of the
Infectious Grooves disc. There were a
few things he managed to enjoy these days, good music and the fine sounding,
self-installed stereo in his car, and a cigarette every so often. He tried not to think about the fact that
his best friend had once told him that he could set his watch by the schedule
he unconsciously made of smoking.
‘Every fifteen minutes,’ Talos had said on a number of occaisions. Another of the things Charlie enjoyed was reading. Many people claimed to be voracious
readers. Charlie didn’t claim any such
thing. Yet if there was such a
category, he fit it. Maybe he was just
an escapist. That was what he often
said when people asked why he enjoyed reading so much. In his mind though, loving to read was an
absolutely commendable thing, the type of thing one really shouldn’t have to
defend or explain. He finished his cigarette, shut off his car and walked
through the parking lot of the strip-mall he was in at present. This particular strip mall always perturbed
him. As he walked between cars, he
remembered yet another reason why.
There was just no room to walk, or park, as was often the case. This particular little strip mall hosted a
number of rather popular stores. On the
side he was on was Car Toys, some strange sort of market, a Quiznos (or
Queasenos as many of his friends referred to it), Barnes and Noble, and Whole
Foods. Whole food and B&N were two of
the biggest draws, that and the Sony Theater, also in this lot. Still, complain though he might, all three of those
particular places drew something he appreciated. Very lovely, youthful ladies.
He loved to look at lovely things.
He supposed that was one of the reasons he’d come to Boulder in the
first place. There was no shortage of
lovely things in Boulder, Colorado, and that is a fact. He pulled open the side door to Barnes and Noble, then
another set and was in. If someone who
knew him had seen him in the parking lot, there would have been no mistaking
his destination. Charlie wasn’t much
for soloing movies, and his car stereo sounded just fine as it was. It wasn’t likely he was headed for Whole
Foods, as he was a pepperoni pizza eater (that pretty much says it all there),
and he was one who was wont to call the nearby sandwich shop queasenos himself. So, there he was, standing in the entrance of B&N,
gazing about with an expression somewhat like a young person at a fair. His eyes were slightly enlarged as he turned
his gaze from one end of the large bookstore to the other. He adjusted his glasses as one of those
lovely young ladies walked by, then skirted the bronze statue in his way, and
headed through the “bargain” section. Bargain, he thought
to himself. More like the
book-pound. “Oh someone, please take me
home, I promise not to stain your carpet, honest…” he imaged the often
oversized books saying as he glanced at their covers. The exciting world of fungi caught his eye briefly and he
sniffed. Some of these books looked
like they would weigh upward of ten pounds and were about the size of a
TV-dinner tray. He had the amusing
thought of buying three of them (“three for $15.00 – today only”) and putting
them together with a few long wood screws to make a table. Suddenly the corridor between the books opened onto the Barnes and Noble main street… It was like a wide boardwalk, spotted with
islands of books, made attractive by signs or cardboard advertisements. “The latest from author ‘such and
so’” they cried. He noticed a few he
was familiar with for some reason or other.
The old books of those authors at the top of the display, the one
advertised all the way at the bottom, virtually unnoticable if you were
standing close enough to actually read the covers. These he bypassed as well. He continued beyond the fiction section, and beyond the myths
section and hung a sharp right as though by instinct into the Science-Fiction/Fantasy
section. “What a joke,” he said. “What’s that?” asked a girl of about twelve from where
she was inspecting some paperback. Charlie fixed her with a curious stare. “What do you read, Sci-Fi or Fantasy?” he
asked her. “Fantasy,” she said unnassuming, looking back at the
cover of a Janny Wurtz book. “Alright. Don’t
you think it’s assinine that they put Sci-Fi and Fantasy in the same
section? As though they are even
remotely the same thing.” “I know!,” she answered emphatically. “I mean, they’ve got entire hallways
of Romance and even Teenage Romance, but these two are somehow
inseparably linked… like Siamese twins or something.” Charlie sniffed distainfully in the general direction of
the arrangers of books and turned to the first of the section. A ‘New Releases’ sign hung above the large
hard-covers and oversized paperbacks.
Charlie always started at the new releases section. He received the SFFA newsletter via E-mail,
but didn’t usually read it unless something important shouted out to him in the
‘table of contents’ section at the top of it.
Therefor, the new releases section was his method of planning for those
paperbacks he’d be buying later. Except under special circumstances, Charlie never bought
hardcovers. They were too big, too
heavy, and generally too hard to comfortably handle while he was in bed
reading, which is almost exclusively where he read. Of course, the spines of a hardcover and the way in which they
were bound allowed the reader usually to open the book fully, even on page
three-hundred fifty of a seven hundred page book. Paperbacks loved to spit pages at you when you did this, forcing
the reader to hold the book at a right angle and turn it with every page. This was very tiresome to a reader like
Charlie, who often had one hand occupied with a beer while the other held the
book. “Look at that,” he mumbled, “Ol’ Stephen Donaldson’s got
a new one out.” “I don’t like him,” said the twelve year old, which
brought an instant and inappreciative sigh from Charlie. Shopping for books was a rather personal
thing for him. Being rushed say, by the
antics of a twelve year old in one’s viscinity, always ended up in a poor buy
due to lack of adequate thought in one’s choices. He hoped she didn’t prattle on. “Why not?” he said in surprise after a moment, having
realized she was ‘dissing’ Donaldson. “Too wordy. It’s
all about the deeper meaning,” she said as though she knew the answer to the
universe, which was, of course, 42 for those who have paid any attention
whatsoever. “Then when it comes down to
the deep meaning, it’s empty and hops about the subject.” “Pah! You’re just
much too young. I take it you’re
talking about the Covenant series, egh?” She nodded, her twin, lengthy pigtails curling as she did
so. Charlie stepped down the isle and picked up two
books. “Read those. I bet you’ll like them very well,” he said
with a knowing smirk. She took up the two volumes. “Mirror of Her Dreams,” she said, then the other, “A Man Rides
Through. Never saw these. My dad’s got the whole Thomas Covenant
series. I couldn’t even get through the
first one.” “That’s because you’re a Dragon Lance reader. Easy meat.
Read Jordan, read Tolkien. Heck,
for you, I recommend LeGuinn, or the Pern series’. Don’t get me wrong, though.
I like those others a lot, but it’s a mood thing. When you want to get serious, get into
serious authors. David Eddings will
rock your world.” “Hey, thanks, mister,” she said and left the section
carrying away the two Donaldson books. Heh! thought
Charlie. Another mind reached. Now, with the section to himself, Charlie began a liesurely
scan of each and every row in the Sci-Fi Fantasy section. Charlie used to be like that girl. Used to choose only certain authors. Actually, he’d started on the Tarzan series
as a kid of no more than ten-years-old.
From there it was the semi-surrealism of Piers Anthony. It was perhaps unfortunate that the first
half of David Eddings’ big series had glared at him after that from the
“Popular” and “best seller” racks he used to peruse as a kid. One taste of Eddings’ High Fantasy and
everyone else paled by comparison. He’d spent years since looking for High Fantasy that
could even come close… be entertaining on a level that could approach to the
bootstraps of a writer like Eddings, but found a lot of trash and
imitators. To this day, he thought with
a shake of his head, there had been no high fantasy to compare, he
thought. Yet one didn’t necessarily have to read only that. There was always other fantasy. In fact, dark fantasy was rather enjoyable
at times. Still, Charlie longed for a
taste of evil dark enough to infect his dreams at night, even wake him up
sometimes, in his selection of fantasy.
With the amount of new female authors in the fantasy section though,
evil seemed to take a side-bar to adventure and magic. Yet there was one, Barbara Hambly. There was definitely darkness there. Charlie didn’t even bother to compare her
with McKiernan, since both were equally dark and menacing. Charlie rather enjoyed shopping for books. He’d come across titles he’d read years ago
and remember the stories in a flash at the sight of the covers. Yet there were so many new fantasy
authors out there. He’d been reading
fantasy for about 20 years, and just couldn’t keep up. Of course, that stint with the ‘literary
canon’ when he was in college hadn’t helped much. After six solid years of multiple books in a night, Charlie had
gone back to the fantasy section and found that he had a LOT of catching up to
do. It didn’t help that fantasy authors were getting a lot of
acclaim these days either. Robert Jordan,
quite possibly the best fantasy writer of the modern world, owned the
fantasy genre spotlight. Unfortunately
Charlie had read the entire 8 books in two weeks time, a total of roughly 5600
pages, and was forced, like the rest of the fantasy reading world, to wait
anxiously for the next of the WOT series to arrive. He knew he’d read it in a day or two and then be in total
withdrawal for a while as he sat back to absorb it, disdaining to read anything
else. “I swear that guy made a pact with the devil,” he
mumbled. J. K. Rowling was another of these. Sure, she wrote under the guise of a
‘children’s book author’. HA! On a whim, after hearing so much hype about
the Potter books on CNN, Charlie had bought Potter’s first year. The very next day, he bought the rest of the
series up, and had them all for lunch.
Her name must be right next to Jordan’s on the Hell Spawn Publishing
Co.’s six hundred and sixty six page contract.
Charlie looked with longing on the Donaldson
section. Too bad he’d already read them
all. Next was Eddings… same story. Fiest too.
Then there seemed to be a whole gigantic section of the alphabet with
which he just wasn’t familiar (barring Jordan, of course). There were many notables in there. And many names Charlie was familiar with,
but had never checked out. This section
was ripe for a new book purchase. Yet, suddenly he found himself at the M’s, having
declined to pick any of those up. H
through M, excepting Hambly, whose books he’d already devoured, and Jordan,
seemed amazingly lacking in series books.
Charlie was one of those for whom a single fantasy story just wasn’t
enough. There had to be that suspense
between books that kept him asking ‘what’s happened to hero X?’. That’s what had killed Piers Anthony for him. Not enough thread between the tales. Of course, Charlie realized this severely
stunted his fantasy collection. But
today he wanted to pick up a new author of series fantasy. A couple had caught his eye so far, yet he
continued on. There had to be the right mixture. Some authors were absolute machines. Some of them in a few years had put out a
collection to rival Stephen King. Now… sure
the shelves were inundated with their names, but… Stephen King writes a book
and it’s all over the place. The radio,
the television, the best seller lists, the freakin’ movies… These others write
that much and Charlie passes them by.
Stephen King, a great author, has duds.
These others who appeared – at least in Charlie’s perception –
overnight, must have a lot of those.
Eventually Charlie knew he’d start on them. But a gigantic series was similar in effect on him as a single
book story. They were just… daunting. Charlie rounded the M section to where it continued on
the other side where the westerns and the Sci-Fi/Fantasy books glared at each
other from opposite sides of the isle.
There was a man there, crouched low and with an outstretched finger
scanning the lower rows of the next shelves over, much as Charlie himself was
wont to do. What struck him was the way
the man was resting his entire weight on his feet, flat-footed and perfectly
balanced. Finishing the row he was on,
the man, dressed in black leather like a biker, stood slowly and effortlessly. His knees didn’t crack and pop like
Charlie’s would in the same situation, and he seemed almost fluid in that
common motion. He stood now gazing at the top row of the next shelf,
balanced on the balls of his feet, with his hands clasped behind his back. He stood almost strangely erect, though it
seemed to Charlie as though this posture were absolutely natural to the man,
whose face was turned away from where Charlie stood. Charlie was so engrossed in gaping at this figure that he didn’t
even notice when his head had turned toward him and he spoke. “Which of these is real?” the man asked in a rock-solid
voice. It wasn’t a deep or loud sort of
voice, but there was a sort of power in it that forced Charlie’s eyes to widen. “Huh?” he asked in befuddlement. “Some of these are real.
I’m trying to decide which of them it is.” “What do you mean?
Real?” “Well…” the man said, stepping a bit closer to Charlie,
standing of roughly equal height to him.
“I’ve travelled places like these, and know at least a few of them. I’m curious to know what others are real.” “But this is the fiction section,” Charlie argued. “Fiction? No
no. Some of these are obviously mere
dreams,” he said, picking up one of the many Conan the Barbarian titles with a
smirk of amusement, “but others are actual accounts.” “You’re daft,” said Charlie with a humored grin. “Then why are you smiling?” Charlie bit his lip.
He had been smiling, he knew it.
But he was smiling because laughing outright at the man might bring his
psychotic mind to some unwholesome thought.
“Well…” he said thinking quickly, “if these stories were real, why would
people read them? They could go live
them and save themselves eight bucks.” The man laughed at him. In scoffing angrily, Charlie suddenly realized that the
man’s leather shirt eerily resembled a tunic.
He also noticed a scar on his cheek that ran from his temple to just
below his cheekbone, ending at a dimple in that roughened skin from the broad
smile he wore at the moment. “What’s
funny?” he asked. “You,” said the man, reaching to pick another book off
the shelf. Charlie noted that his arm
was rather muscley, though overall he was fairly thin. “What? Why am I
funny?” “You people are so disbelieving… yet you are compelled to
read this…” he said, holding up Lord of the Rings. “You people?
What people?” “You and everyone else, excepting these few on these
shelves who have lived the tales about which they’ve written. I bet you’ve read quite a few of these
stories,” said the leather clad man with a scrutinous gaze. “Don’t some of them strike you as more real
than the others?” Charlie’s gaze narrowed.
He knew he’d never make a good decision about what book to buy now,
distracted by this madman. “Of course
some are better than others.” “Some are more than better than others. It’s as though there is no comparison, I’d
imagine,” said the stranger. Charlie had to agree with this. He had just been thinking the same thing not five minutes
ago. He continued to stare at the man
wordlessly. “You still disbelieve me? Are you looking for a particular tome, then?” “No. I’m looking,
that’s all.” “Well, let me help you, then.” The man grinned at him almost wickedly. “I shall pick for you an adventure I know to be true, and
you read it. You meet me back here in
one week, and we will discuss your new outlook.” He scanned the shelves around them before he found one
and pulled it out. “The Darkness
Overcame. This one is a tragic tale,
but very very real. Take it. If it is not as good as the best of these
you’ve read, then you will tell me so, I’m certain, when we meet here at this
time next week.” With that the strange,
leather clad man nodded firmly once and disappeared behind the Westerns
in the direction of the café. Charlie looked at the book in his hands. The Darkness Overcame, by X. M.
Prilonis. “Cool initials,” he mumbled
and turned the book over. When Prox finds himself
awakening to an alien world he can hardly believe his misfortune. A plague on the land, a mighty dragon bent
on a vendetta against a nearby castle, and an ugly princess whose fallen for
him. Prox is forced to join a quest to
slay the dragon, saving the realm, and yes, the ugly princess too. Yet this is only the surface
of Prox’s troubles. How he’s managed to get to
this place, and whether he can get out again become increasingly important as
his quest begins. How much time does he
have here? Can he survive the journey
itself? And what happens when he
returns to his world after his harrowing journey into the dragon’s lair? Charlie took the book to the counter. Based on the cover art and the synopsis on
the back cover, he knew he’d never have picked this book to take home. But with such a hearty review from the
leather stranger he was convinced that it was at least worth a try. Besides, it was marked 25% off in a great
green and white sticker affixed to the front cover. What was a couple of bucks, anyhow? If it turned out to be as good as the stranger claimed, it would
be worth it. After he’d gotten home and fixed some supper and watched
a bit of Extreme Machines on The Learning Channel – the space shuttle was the
topic - he headed upstairs to bed. He
opened all the windows in his bedroom, set his alarm, flipped on his small
reading lamp and threw the gigantic pillow made by his grandmother when he was
a baby onto the bed. Once undressed he settled
himself on to the bed and took up the book. He always liked to read the author bio, get a feel for
the folks he was reading. Apparently
Mr. Prilonis had fallen ill during the scribing of this book, and succombed to
a rather strange disease shortly after its completion. He shrugged and turned to the first pages. Minding my own business, I was
hiking through a field in the middle of the mountains one-day when I stumbled
onto a tunnel of sorts. “Aargh!” Charlie groaned. “First person.” The tunnel, more an irrigation
ditch, I guess, lead down into the ground at a gentle slope. It was fairly clean and well-lit, though
what it was doing here, I certainly couldn’t guess. Eventually my curiosity overcame me, and I stepped into it. Though the beginning was not quite world-class, by the
second page, Prox’s adventure into the tunnel had hooked him. Lowess Lowess Celtin was not looking forward to going home
tonight. Her life was one of
loneliness, though she knew that was her own fault. She had once enjoyed the company of lots of friends, and was
carefree and even, and though the description now seemed strange to her, a bit
wild at heart. She’d met her husband
young, disbelieving the tales of how marriage could go awry. But that was what had happened nonetheless. She had fallen in love with another man a couple years
into her marriage, though it just never occurred to her that she’d fallen out
of it with her husband. In fact, it
never occurred to her that she might never have loved him in the first place. But after meeting Bryce, it certainly
did. Bryce made her laugh, touched
emotions in her that she didn’t know where there to be stroked. He was charming and provocative. He kept her interested with talk unlike
anything her husband would ever have thought of. Lowess was by no means a fool. She was very smart, and was a woman of means of her own. When her marriage had fallen apart, and John
had learned of Bryce, things turned very sour indeed. She’d moved from Pierstown to Lentsville, across Otsego Lake
where she bought a little house off of Bowen Rd. She had been slowly buying the “Bookstore on the Hill” from the
bank after Mr. Prilonis’ death a couple years ago, which was how she found out
about the house on Bowen hill, overlooking the lake. It worked well for her.
Her backyard was Bowen Hill, and she walked up a short flight of steps
she had made to the rear of the bookstore, where she would sit mornings by the
little spring, named the Hartspring, after madame Hart, who’d owned this land
over sixty years ago. It was just about
as wide as a person as it gurgled into a circular pool, which ever spilled its
sides and meandered through her garden toward the lake. Her affair with Bryce had hardly lasted much longer than
the divorce proceedings with John.
Though he didn’t seem the philandering type, Bryce had found someone
else. Either at her prodding, or
eventually getting tired of juggling two women, Bryce had decided to cut Lowess
loose. Sometimes her little house and
bookstore on the other side of the lake seemed very far removed indeed. It was just coming to be Fall in the Appalachians, and
the tourist season almost over.
Business was falling off already, as the late travellers settled for the
larger towns of Cooperstown and Springfield, rather than venturing down to the
lake-shore. Thankfully the drive along
Highway 33 from Glimmerglass to Cooperstown was still fairly full of campers
from the park. It meant the quiet
beautiful Autumn was coming very soon indeed.
To Lowess though, it meant silence and loneliness and her own thoughts. In April this year, Lowess had decided to buy one of
those fancy, stainless steel machines with an Italian name to make espresso for
her customers. It had been a wise
move. The nearest espresso was at least
six miles down the road in Cooperstown, and folks found as often as not that
they’d rather not have any as drive there and attempt to find parking. The machine had managed to pay for itself
over the summer, though it did little to pay Betsy’s way, the woman who manned
the whirring, steam-breathing beast during open-hours. That was the hardest thing about the coming of Fall. Business would drop steadily in the coming
days, and book sales would fall as well…
Lowess mused that the term Fall was an apt one for this time of
year in her little corner of the Appalachians.
Betsy had been showing her how to use the espresso machine all Summer
during slow times. She was a student at
Utica, and would be leaving to live there soon enough. She’d left early today, Betsy. As six o’clock came and went, Lowess found herself out front
making espressos by the handfull. She’d
made enough to cover the sales of at least three hardcovers in tips alone since
three. Perhaps next Spring she’d have
to think about building an add-on for the espresso… but “The Bookstore and espresso shop on the Hill” was far
too long a name, mused Lowess. Right at six-thirty young Randy Jensen came across the
road with her sandwich. Randy was an
espresso junkie, and his shift started at Harrison’s Market at six. At six-thirty on the nose every day he
brought her a bite to eat, in exchange for a “Triple Shot Mocha”. Today was no different. “’Afternoon Ms. Celtin,” he said, those young,
mischievous eyes sparkling. Lowess knew
this one was trouble with the ladies from that look in his eye. “Good afternoon, Mr. Jensen,” she quipped. “Oh please,” he batted a hand at her, “I’m no Mister… you
call me Randy everyday… why today did you call me Mr. Jensen?” “Well…” she said, mirroring his mischievous look with a
flash in her eyes, “Why do you insist on calling me Ms. Celtin?” “I just, uh…” “Call me Lowess, Randy.”
She took the sandwich from him.
“Afterall, you’re not so young that the two of us couldn’t date, you
know.” She hardly believed she’d said
that. “Oh! Uh,” Randy’s
face positively burned with embarassment.
“Don’t worry, Randy, I’m not going to ask you out. You’re trouble with the girls, that much I
can see.” Randy grinned a wicked sort of grin, his dark red hair
framing those blue eyes. He would be
very handsome indeed, Lowess thought, if it weren’t for that perma-scowl he
seemed to wear. Kids these days all
seemed mighty pissed off at something.
No one knew what that might be, but here was the evidence nonetheless. The shiny Lacrimae Rerum espresso machine finished
heating up the grounds and began to emit the thick black substance Randy loved
so much. Both of the twin steamer cups
filled to the top with espresso shots as Randy looked on in silence. The thought that he just might be giving
thanks to his god of coffee struck Lowess as funny and she laughed. “I suppose you want the extra shot, too?” she asked him
as she poured the first three of the four shots the machine had made into a cup
for him. “Of course, Ms…. er… Lowess.” His bedimpled grin was another reason she knew he was trouble
with the local ladies. She poured the fourth shot in atop the chocolate, already
melted by the hot, black, liquid energy, and then spun the dial on the milk
steamer, where it had now churned the milk to a foamy head. She poured milk into his cup, then dabbed a
bit of foam on top as well. “Whipped
cream?” she asked reaching benath the counter for the ‘Redi-whip’ canister. “No… that stuff is just messy… get’s all over your face,
you know,” he said before his eyes narrowed at the sight of the canister in her
hands. “But I’ll buy that from you,” he
grinned with a hopeful look in his eye. It took her a moment to catch on before she fixed him
with an ireful glare. “I don’t think
so, Randy. This isn’t what you think it
is, anyhow,” she said, leaning on the canister to glare at him. “Whatever you say, Lowess. You see that cartridge there?” he pointed at the canister
attached to the cream can. It read “NO2
– Food Grade”. “That’s nitrous
oxide. It may not be as pure as what
the dentist uses, but it has the same effect.” She scoffed, but that was mainly to hide her shock. “Why would you want to breathe in something
you knew was a lower grade than what you really want?” “It’s like this,” Randy began, drumming his fingers on
the counter top, “You know when you buy ‘immitation’ bacon bits at the
store? It’s called immitation because
it doesn’t pass the FDA’s regulations on what bacon is… there is bacon in it,
just not enough. You still eat them,
though, don’t you?” He nodded
self-satisfactorily at her. “Oh go away!” she said half in scorn half in jest. “You kids!
If you’re not careful, I’m gonna talk to Gertie over there and tell her
not to let you buy cough syrup even!” Randy cocked a rather arrogant, and suggestive eyebrow at
her, then waved and crossed the street sipping his quadruple mocha. She shook her head.
“Kids just know too damn much.
No wonder they’re all pissed off,” she said to herself, peeling back the
saran-wrapping on her sandwich. Chicken
salad. “Thanks, Randy,” she said to
herself, taking a bite still pondering his peculiar behavior. While she ate her sandwich she cleaned up the espresso
maker just as Betsy had showed her.
Betsy, a very thorough young lady, had made a checklist about this. “If you let it get all gunked up, you’ll
ruin it, then you’ve wasted all that money,” she’d admonished one night after
she’d left early and Lowess had forgotten to clean the machine. It was easy to clean, with all those
stainless steel parts. It was about seven by the time she finished with that and
walked around the divider that separated the steaming espresso machine from the
delicate books. Sunset was nice in the
old bookstore. The rear wall had a few
windows in it that overlooked both her house and the lake down the hill. The reddish sunset was blinding through the
windows just now, setting the dark wood around the shop glowing with life. With few customers today, Lowess had very
little upkeep to do in the shop. She
closed out her till and batched-out the credit card machine, re-shelved a
couple of books that were out of place, and walked into the back office. If the shop itself was glowing in the sunset, the back
office seemed afire. The walls were
panelled in oak, the doorway was oak, her floor was a hard maple or something,
and her oaken rolltop desk and chair stood right in the pool of liquid fire
that streamed hotly through the large windows on the western wall. She closed the top of the desk and took her
book down from its top then opened the back door, set key to lock, and faced
the seemingly changed light of the sunset. The red was much more white without the diffusion of the
windows of the shop. The ancient and
gigantic oak that shaded the south-eastern side of her house from the highway
seemed to step right out of any number of storybooks. It’s broad arms stretching out over her little patch of lawn and
beauty bark near her bedroom, glistening in the sun as though it were morning
and they were swathed in dew. The lake below seemed perfectly angled to blind her from
where she took a seat at the wicker love-seat she’d long ago placed next to the
hartspring. The sun struck it now with
that reddened tinge that set sparks glimmering on its mostly flat surface. Part of the reason she had Randy bring her
snacks about this time was that it was difficult to stand in her westward
facing kitchen at dusk, the sunset and it’s reflection from Lake Otsego
together blinding through the bay window over her sink. Also, she preferred to sit up here anyhow,
reading by the last remaining light of the day before retiring to her living
room to either continue or turn on the television, where she often fell asleep. The spring babbled with its soothing voice from right
next to her. Part of what she loved about
this spring is that since it constantly babbled and softly churned its surface,
mosquitos chose not to nest there. It
was quite clear too, lacking much vegitation, though some clung about it’s
edges below the surface. It always
amazed her to peer into its depths as she did now. The hartspring had no bottom that she could discern, and of
course, she’d never ventured to find out its depth. She shifted her position in the wicker seat then, and
gasped as her book seemed almost to leap from her hands to ploomp right
into the hartspring. “Damn!” she cried,
fretting for the now hopelessly damaged hardcover of E. R. Eddison’s A Fish
Dinner in Memison. It had been a
Ballantine’s first edition too… a valuable book, also the final one of three
and she’d only just started it. She crouched down on the damp grass and peered into the
deapths of the hartspring. She didn’t
see the book anywhere. The ‘book club’ Charlie was anxious to go back to Barnes and Noble to
find the strange character who’d turned him onto one of the most fascinating
books he’d ever read. He’d finished it
two nights ago, and hadn’t managed to get the tale out of his thoughts in that
much time. It was his hope that this odd
biker fellow would suggest another book to him, and continue to do so until Charlie
could recognize books of this most excellent quality for himself. He sped out of his Gunbarrel office as fast as his feet
could carry him and hopped into his car.
The day he’d met the fellow had been a slow day at the lab, and he’d
been there early. Today had not been so
slow, and he was off by a few minutes already.
Boulder traffic was a bear at the best of times too, but now it was rush
hour. He started the engine of his Corolla, the stereo came to
life under the hard rythmic beats of Henry Rollins, which only fueled his
urge. He had a breif moment of calm as
he drew out a cigarette and struck his lighter. The calm shattered though as the full force of the A/C in his
face repeatedly snuffed his light until he frustratedly had to shut it
down. Finally, stoagie alight, A/C back
on, and window rolled down full, and the drums urging him again, Charlie threw
the Corolla into first and hopped the short curb in front of him, ignoring the
dull clank of his U-joints hitting cement, and sped off around the lot,
opposite the Printed Page and toward Serrano’s Grill. Drumming on the steering wheel with is thumbs he pulled
up behind a car waiting for the traffic to lull enough that she could make the
same left turn he would… a longish wait it was too. Apparently the light out on 63rd and the light on
Lookout Rd had gone green at the same time, because a steady stream of cars
came from both directions. When the
girl in the 70’s topless bronco finally pulled out, he rode her bumper. “Everyone else is an asshole everyday, I can do it once,”
he chanted as the car coming upon his bumper fast honked. He wasn’t able to get around that slow-moving bronco
until Jay Road, where he hardly slowed to take the thirty-degree turn toward
the Diagonal Highway. He was lucky at
the light on the highway that he was a small car. Anything even a couple inches longer than his would have had to
get stuck behind the train that was coming even as he drove over the tracks,
the crossing arm descending toward the roof of his car. When he was safely beyond the tracks and the light
changed, he started across the highway, instantly seeing that it was full of
cars. Well, he thought to himself, it’s
the long route for us, he patted the dashboard affectionately. He punched it and second gear quickly topped
out as he wove right around the turn-lane cars and bounced lightly across the
westbound side of the highway, continuing his way down Jay Road. Luck was with him.
The light at Jay and 28th was green to him and he rounded the
corner like a formula one racer, speeding back the direction he needed to
go. Again, the light at 28th
and Iris was green for the turn lane, and he turned eastward, back the way he’d
come, then hung a quick right onto 30th. It was a straight shot down 30th to B&N, and took
him less than 2 minutes, despite a red light and the 30 mph speed limit. Barnes and Noble was mildly busy as he paused with a
smile to hold the door for the highly attractive brunette hippy girl behind
him. She smiled for him as she passed,
her long, billowy patch-dress flowing as she did. He shook his head with a grin and crossed the bargain books
section to the advertisement highway, and across that to the fantasy
section. The section was no more than
four rows wide, and a quick check told him that this stranger was not
there. He shrugged with a casualness he
didn’t feel, and quickly made his way through the empty N through W section,
where he lined up for the Starbuck’s counter. Now, it had been a long time since he’d lived in Seattle
and entered his first Starbucks. In
truth it had been somewhere in the neighborhood of ten years. But the following conversation he heard
distinctly. “Starfucks… didn’t they
know that this place would be nicknamed that when they started. What the hell is a Starbuck anyway?” said a
guy to his shrugging girlfriend in line ahead of him. Charlie tapped the girl’s shoulder, and she turned around
as her boyfriend continued to eye the Frappaccino menu. “Hey, uh…” he said with a smile, she was
another cute one, he couldn’t help but notice.
“Starbuck is the name of Captain Ahab’s first mate in Moby Dick,” he
said quietly. “Really?” She said, eyeing him while twirling the long
curly strand of dusky hair in her hand.
She gave him an incredible smile, then turned back to her
boyfriend. “I thought everybody knew
that Starbuck was Captain Ahab’s first mate,” she said, giving him the OK sign
with her fingers behind her back.
Charlie laughed quietly to himself as the tall boyfriend turned to glare
at her in total stupefaction. “Who?” he said with surprise coloring his voice. “Why, Captain Ahab,” she told him, “from Moby Dick.” She turned nonchallantly back to the menu
board as he continued to glare at her, now in suspicion as though he thought
she’d made it up. The pair of them left still discussing who Captain Ahab
and Starbuck were, and Charlie could see that she was getting herself into
sticky situation until she said, “I can’t believe you don’t know Moby
Dick.” That, as they say, was
that. He was still chuckling as he ordered
his ‘iced triple grande mocha’ in perfect Starbuckese. The tip of a dollar twenty went far toward
getting him that fourth shot as well.
He walked away sipping it.
Starbuck’s may not be the best coffee there was, but you had to award
them consistency. Stepping down from the raised platform of two steps and
looking up from his mocha toward the fantasy section, which he was about to
start his ritual search through for new series authors, he saw the stranger,
looking through the pages of a thin book. His look was complete, Charlie noticed. He still wore what looked to be the same leather leggings and a
leather coat this time. His long dark
hair, curly, Charlie could tell, was bound in back in a loose pony-tail. He wore his face clean shaven, which is how
Charlie was able to see the myriad scars like a little topographical map on his
face. One of those seemed more recent,
and looked like it was burned across his nose, the angriness of it’s red
quality superficially hidden beneath a dark tan. “Greetings,” Charlie said to him, leaning agains the
bookshelf, which got him a dark look from a worker passing in the isle beyond. “Ah!” said the stranger, and even in so short a word,
Charlie discerned an odd accent. “So
you’ve come back. Did you like the book?” Charlie scrutinized the hardened gaze of this man, who
dressed like he must be Charlie’s age.
The look in those eyes spoke of an age beyond his though, along with the
small, hardly noticable wrinkles around them.
“I did indeed,” he admitted. The stranger did not look surprised in the least, in
fact, he turned back to the page he’d been looking at when Charlie had greeted
him. It took a moment for Charlie to work up the nerve to
speak to him again, as the stranger seemed fairly engrossed in his reading. “Do you have another one to suggest?” “Hmmm,” the stranger’s voice came like a growl. “No.
But I have a reading group that may.” The words ‘reading group’ coming from that hard-lined jaw sounded
like it wasn’t even english to Charlie.
It was, of course – or he’d never have understood them. But it sounded almost as though the man had
never conceived of such words, let alone of their meaning before. “A reading group?” Charlie asked, more because he wanted
to hear the words with meaning than for any need of clarification from the
stranger. “Yes,” he said.
“We’re meeting in about a half-hour.
Would you like to come?” Charlie thought about this for a moment, gazing into the
rough face of this peculiarly dressed man.
It was some time before he became conscious of the man looking back at
him, and he stammered to apologize… or speak… or something. “Ah,” said the man quickly, before Charlie could
speak. “Please, forgive me. My name is Deker,” he said a smile coming to
those stern, thin lips. He reached out
a hand, and Charlie made to shake it.
He never touched Deker’s hand though, instead finding his thick, sinewy
forarm in his clasp through the leather of that jacket. He looked down in surprise to find Deker
clasping his own forearm in the same manner.
It was not an unheard of custom, of course, to shake another man’s
forearm… it’s just that the only place Charlie had ever heard of it being done
was in the fantasy tales he read. “Uh… Charlie,” he replied, his gaze returning to those
cold, amber eyes. “Well met, Charlie,” Deker said with a smile that was
genuine, if odd looking on his stern sort of face. “Well, have you an… automobile?” he said with a questioning
glance. It was another term that
sounded unbelievably foreign out of Deker’s mouth. “Yes,” Charlie replied with a queer look on his face,
which Deker did not seem to notice. “Shall we go then?
We are meeting in a place called Gunbarrel. Know you this place?” Charlie nearly laughed when the inflection hit his ears
like something out of a bad fantasy-adventure movie, but kept his calm – such
as it was, and nodded. Something cold
and wet dripped over his fingers then, and he suddenly remembered the full
mocha he still held in his left hand.
“Uh… follow me,” he said and started back toward the side-entrance of
the store, even as he mumbled to himself, “I guess.” Three cars vied impatiently for Charlie’s spot as Deker
seemed to have some sort of difficulty with the door handle. When he finally did get in, and sat
awkwardly in the passenger seat, Charlie pulled his seat belt into place and
waited for Deker to do so before starting the car. In his beffudlement about this situation, he totally forgot about
the Rollins CD in his stereo, which suddenly sprang to life, shocking the hell
out of Deker as a particularly dark and disonant set of power cords wove
between sinister drum beats. “Sorry about that, Deker,” Charlie mumbled turning the
volume down as quickly as he could from 20 to 8. Sensing that someone waiting behind him in their cars was about
to honk, Charlie backed quickly out of the parking space before even taking out
a cigarette. He proceded from there to
manuver the parking lot with his left knee as he drew and lit a cigarette and
rolled down his window in a flurry of motion, feeling Deker’s eyes on him the
whole time. As they waited at the awkward exit from the little
shopping center, waiting for three lanes of traffic to either be absent or slow
enough for Charlie to zoom across to the left-hand turn lane at the corner of
30th and Pearl less than forty feet away, Deker’s head turned
continuously about, not looking, but listening. “You like it?” Charlie asked, moving to turn the stereo
up again, noting himself the sweet quadraphonic sound of the drums in
particular as he did. “I like it,” said Deker with perfect calm, even as his
hand shot out and grabbed Charlie’s wrist.
“But I like it at this volume, if you please,” he said with a wan smile. Charlie chuckled.
Even at volume 8, which was at least 10 clicks below where he ever got
it alone, the woofers in the rear deck pushed enough force to feel in your
back. And though the passing traffic
generally drowned out the sound of the mids and highs, the whole of the music
could be heard otherwise. “No problem,”
said Charlie, easing through traffic while eyeing the oncomers so that he knew
they saw him crossing the wide street. It was Charlie’s lucky night for traffic too, because he
was able to squeeze through the yellow turn signal and onto Pearl Street
without any further delay. “Can you
guide me, man? I actually live in
Gunbarrel, so if you can give me the general area…” “Do you know the Gunbarrel Technical Park?” said Deker,
at which Charlie’s eyes widened, though he was looking out his window at the
moment, so Deker didn’t see. The
Gunbarrel Technical Park was in Charlie’s back yard. “Oh… uh… Nautilus Court, right?” Deker nodded as Charlie turned sharply onto the Foothills
Parkway on-ramp. Deker held on as if
for dear life at this point, and gaped wide eyed as the Corolla sped up to
fifty five. “Er…” Charlie said, “does my driving bother you?” he
asked. Charlie was a pretty good
driver, in his estimation, and he hadn’t even gone so fast around that corner
that the centrifugal force moved them much.
“Oh,” said Deker abruptly. “No, I’m just used to a higher vehicle,” he said. “It seems we are moving extremely fast so
low to the ground.” “Ah,” Charlie smiled.
“SUV driver, egh? Yeah, I used
to drive a van. It does take a bit of
getting used to.” They sped along as Foothills became Diagonal, leaving no
less than five car lengths between the bumper and the car in front of him. Yet true to Boulderite style, the car behind
him was so close that it’s grille was hidden beneath Charlie’s back seat in his
rearview. The Audi A4 sped up and
zipped around him, never actually completing the lane-change as it swerved in
front of Charlie again. Immediately the
bright brake-lights came on and the A4 swerved right again onto a 15 mile an
hour off ramp. “Dumb mother fucker!” Charlie yelled, surprising
Deker. “Did you see that?! Why did he have to pass me to slow down and
exit within a hundred yards? That’s
just stupid!” Charlie cried, shaking his head in surprise. “It was strange, wasn’t it,” Deker said, his eyes still a
bit wide at Charlie’s series of outbursts. They turned onto Jay road and headed toward 63rd,
hanging a left toward the Technical Park, which was one street past Charlie’s
own street to home. “Up here, right?”
Charlie asked just to be sure. “I don’t know. I
have never come this way before,” said Deker, peering ahead to the left, the
opposite way of the Technical Park.
Indeed he seemed surprised when Charlie turned right onto Nautilus
Drive, but he nodded quickly. “Yes,
this is correct,” he said as they came to the T where the drive met the
court. “It is to the right,” Deker
said. They drove around the next corner and still Deker didn’t
say to stop. They continued a ways
until all the buildings were behind them and there was just a field ahead, and
some horrid looking condos beyond that. “Turn here, into this area,” Deker said, and Charlie
obeyed, hanging a right behind the last building on Nautilus Court and driving
past a bay of loading docks. Charlie
was amazed at where they were. This was
the very building he used as a guide for when the power went out. If this building’s power was out as well as
his, that meant all of Gunbarrel was dark, including the street lights and
signals. Just ahead, around the
backside of the building were a couple cars.
To the left was the first of the Twin Lakes that gave Charlie’s
neighborhood its name, and there were a couple people standing over there. “Park here, next to these others,” Deker told him. They got out, and headed toward the group of
three others that were waiting beneath the eaves of a tall deciduous tree that
Charlie could see from his kitchen window and back porch. “Greetings travellers!” called Deker as Charlie mumbled
to himself ‘Travellers’? “Are we ready
to embark on yet another journey?” A young blonde haired, shifty eyed fellow wearing very
sturdy clothing, including a carhardt jacket and levi’s, which was odd, as it
was no less than eighty-five degrees today, stepped up. “David and Jenna aren’t here yet,” he said,
then curiously shaded his eyes and looked westward at the sun, which still hung
above the mountains yet. “Well, we are early, of course,” said Deker. “Here is another for our group,” he said
then, wrapping one of those strong arms around Charlie’s shoulder. “This is Charlie.” “Matt,” said a tallish, red-faced guy, his dark hair
cropped fairly short but looking as though it were growing out. Charlie shook his hand, taking note of
Matt’s long horseman’s jacket of oilskin and sturdy leather workboots beneath
the cuffs of his levi’s. “I’m Sprig,” said the next guy, who was about Charlie’s
general build, which is to say average height with a slight paunch. Sprig wore patchwork courduroys and a large
woven poncho of sorts, with a hood that remained hanging down his back at the
moment. Charlie shook his hand as well. “And I’m Johann,” said the blonde lad that had spoken
before, taking Charlie’s hand in his much smaller one. Charlie felt strong callouses on his palm,
and instantly figured him for a construction worker, given his choice of
clothes. Charlie felt a bit odd in his knit shorts and tee-shirt,
though that lasted a mere moment, as the others quickly sought the shade
again. A car pulled up at that moment,
it was a Mercedes SUV, Charlie saw beneath his shaded eyes. As the silhouettes of a man and woman
approached, Charlie tried to make out their faces. It wasn’t until they were less than fifteen feet away that his
jaw dropped for a split second. It was
the Moby Dick couple from the Starbuck’s line.
Though he hadn’t noticed it in the bookstore, both of them were dressed
a bit warmly for the day as well, like the others. “Hey! Captain
Ahab!” the girl, presumably Jenna, said with a grin of surprise to find Charlie
there. “I had him goin for a while, but
had to explain it eventually,” she confided in him as her boyfriend, David
approached, looking confused until he put it all together. David was a bit taller than Charlie, but
unlike Matt bore a considerable bulk as well.
Rich college types, thought Charlie looking momentarily past
David to his silver Mercedes. “Jenna. David,” said Deker, “This is Charlie. He’ll be joining us tonight.” “How exciting!” Jenna said with a mischievous spark to
her eyes. “So… uh… what do you all do in this book group?” Charlie
asked, a bit confused by the odd assortment of folks around him. “Book group?”
Surprise was plainly evident in Johann’s voice. “He’s back to using that one again, egh?” Charlie gaped at him in confusion. “You’re… not a book group?” he said
with an accusatory glance at Deker, who was taking a seat on the ground. “We’ve a few minutes left,” Deker’s rough voice said as
he looked out over the western mountains again, guaging the sun, it
seemed. “I’m sorry for the subterfuge,
friend Charlie. But in truth this is not
a reading group.” To Charlie’s ear, Deker’s accent seemed to get thicker
and thicker with each word. “That’s right,” said Sprig. “This is an adventure group,” he said flatly. “Well…” Matt argued, “It’s more like a danger
group.” The shiftly look in his face
was a bit shocking to Charlie, who suddenly felt rather foolish indeed. “Yes,” said David.
“Plenty of danger. But if
Deker’s picked you, you must be right
for the job,” he said with a scowl as though he didn’t believe that. “Danger…? Job…?”
Charlie was muttering. The sun was starting to dip below the tips of the western
peaks now, making seeing the group a bit easier. Jenna was looking at Charlie with something between amusement and
empathy it seemed. As though she wanted
to explain, but enjoyed his ignorance all the same. “David,” said Deker in the sudden quiet, “Get your bag.” David jogged swarthily back to his Mercedes and from the
hatch took out a bag that was big enough to fit Charlie inside. It looked like it might already have a body
inside it though, as Charlie watched David heft it slowly over his shoulder
with both hands and walk as though beneath a considerable weight back to
them. Whatever was in the bag couldn’t
have been a body though, Charlie realized, as the bag held it’s form rigidly. As he approached there was a dull clang coming from the
bag with each step, and Charlie turned to Deker just in time to see the man
looking south at the waxing quarter moon that hung right over Charlie’s
townhouse. Charlie could see his patio set
from where they stood, and a wash of relief came over him that if anything
weird happened, at least he could run home. “Let’s go,” Deker said firmly, and the lot of them began
walking around the rim that flanked the water’s edge toward another stand of
leafy trees and some brush. When they reached the brush, Deker stepped into it,
parting it a bit with his hand so that Johann could catch it and follow, and so
on through their line until at last Charlie stepped over a decomposing log and
into a clearing that was almost large enough for the seven of them. He gaped at the items David was pulling from
that giant canvas bag of his. The first item was an unstrung bow that was at least five
feet long, the next a quiver of arrows only slightly shorter. These the big man handed to Johann, who
immediately set his body weight to the bow and struggled to string it. Next to come out of the bag was a… a
sword. Charlie considered himself
somewhat of an amature sword enthusiast, but this was no show piece David was
handing to Sprig. The blade was some
three feet long, and the handle long enough for a single hand. Charlie was so surprised at this site, that
he didn’t notice at first the belt that David also handed him, which Sprig
immediately wrapped around his waist, then sheathed his sword in a soft leather
scabbard attached to it. “Hurry now, there is little time left,” Deker’s voice
said out of the fog of Charlie’s thoughts. Charlie didn’t notice anything further until David tossed
a heavy leather bundle to him, followed so quickly by an inch thick staff that
it hit him in the forehead before he caught it with an ungrateful look at
David. “Put it on,” David growled at
him, nodding to the leather bundle in his hands. Holding the staff in the crook of his arm, Charlie let
the leather thing unroll. It was some
kind of smock. It was split from the
hem nearly to the waiste, and the attached upper section had a deep V cut,
threaded with a leather thong. Charlie
shrugged, deciding this was sort of exciting, and bunched the thing up in his
hands, then pulled it on over his head.
The body part had what seemed like sleeves, but were really just flaps
that hung from his shoulder to his wrist, as long as he held his arms down at
his sides. As he looked down at himself, he thought he didn’t look
quite as stupid as he’d have thought, wearing what was essentially a leather
dress. Then he noticed a bundle of
strings lying between his feet, and he picked them up. “They’re for the arms,” Jenna’s voice whispered in his
ear, a bit more softly than he thought David might approve of. “It’s time we got moving,” Deker said abruptly as Charlie
gathered up his staff, which had two bits of leather attached as hand-holds on
either side of the mid-point, and immediately he was following behind Jenna as
they pushed a bit further through the brush.
Though the shadows were darkening their bushes, Charlie cast one last
look back at his house, which he could still make out, the kitchen windows
glistening in the sunset and took a deep breath. Then he began to hear loud splashes nearby and Deker’s voice
split the cricket song all around them.
“Have a care, people. Try to be
a bit quieter,” came his hoarse whisper. Charlie turned back in time to see David jump into a
puddle just past Jenna and sink past his head as though he’d just jumped into a
swimming pool. The Heartspring Lowess stretched out a hand and ignoring her
blouse-sleeve plunged her hand through the surface of the spring. She swished it about, and to her extreme
surprise did not feel the watery resistance she fully expected. Instead, she felt a sort of musty air, damp,
but definitely not water. “What the hell is this,” she said, her cheek pressed to
the grass as she looked off into nowhere, trying to determine what she was
feeling. She pulled her hand out of the
hartspring. It was hardly wet. Her blouse sleeve had a soaked ring around
her bicep, but other than that seemed as though it had merely been in a short,
misty rain, rather than plunged a foot and a half into a spring. She pushed her hand into the spring again, and again felt
the air on the other side and she cursed in frustration. She pulled her arm out again, and just to
make sure she wasn’t going crazy, splashed at the surface of the spring. Water splashed all over her skirt as she
cursed herself for an idiot. She was so
surprised at her dry hand that she hadn’t thought to splash away from
herself. Again she plunged her hand through the spring, and again
found nothing on the other side but damp air.
Finally she got up on her knees and with a hand bracing herself on either
side of the spring inched her nose closer and closer to the surface, trying to
see if she could see anything at all.
Water. That was all she saw. She screwed up her face in confusion and
frustration, feeling whine coming on.
Then she glanced around her to make certain no one was watching, and
plunged her whole head through the surface of the hartspring in her backyard. Her body followed. As though her hands slipped on the sides of the pool,
despite the firm grip she knew she had, she suddenly found herself falling
through the water. That was just what
it was too. It was as if there were
only a half inch of water, and on the other side… A torchlit, stone-walled room. She fell into a crumple on the hard stone floor. She jumped up quickly and turned around to
face where she thought she’d come from, though instead of falling on her head
from above, she’d fallen on her chest as though she’d come from a perpendicular
angle. She gasped at her own
reflection. She stood looking at
herself in a mirror roughly the size of her hartspring. She stared for a long time into the mirror,
at herself, mostly dry though looking as though she’d just run from her car to
the grocery store in a heavy rain. It was so utterly quiet in that room, she noticed right
away. She turned about and looked
around the room she was in and saw several other objects. Many mirrors hung on the walls, spaced
evenly about the room, which had a peculiar, haphazard sort of shape. It wasn’t square, or rectangular, but was
irregular. Some walls were short, some
long. She counted six of them, but
found no doorway as she rounded the room, half in fear, half in
fascination. The mirror she had come through was unmistakable. It was the only one that was just that
size. In a moment of fright, forcing
herself to understand that somehow she had plummeted from her hartspring to
that mirror and to this floor from there, she ran back to it, and stopped
staring into it. Hoping for all she was
worth, she held up her hand flat before her, watching it shake uncontrollably
with a queer sort of detachment. “Please work…” she muttered, then again. She chanted it like a mantra before finally
gathering enough will to move the hand.
In her fretting, she thrust her hand forward, fingertips first much too fast,
and began crying as soon as her fingers crumpled against smoothe glass. It had hurt a bit, but not too much. Yet her hope that it would give was crushed
into despair as her fingers crunched into the glass and bounced back. She sunk to the floor in a heap and
cried. And she cried. Eventually there was nothing left to cry,
and so she sobbed dryly, glaring at the mirror as though it would feel her
spite for it. She had no idea how long she sat there sobbing. At one point she realized that the room was
silent again, and hadn’t even noticed she’d stopped sobbing to herself. She still glared into the mirror, not seeing
herself, or even anything else that it reflected, but just sat there, slowly
losing her sanity as if it were like sand falling through a handful of it,
seeping out until there was nothing left to hold onto. Sometime later her eyes moved dryly in a small circle,
still somewhat focused on the mirror before her, and with a cry of terror she
saw faces reflected in it. She leapt
up, and faced five people who stood across the chamber from her, watching her
with expressions as surprised as hers. Illusions “What the fuck?” Charlie stammered as Jenna approached
the puddle without stopping. With a
little hop as though she were eight years old and about to splash in the
puddle, she flew out to the center and plunged in, to disappear beneath the
surface of the puddle. “What the
fuck?!!!” Charlie nearly screamed. “Quickly now, Charlie.
Time is almost run out. You must
go. I assure you it is safe,” Deker
pressed, a hand resting calmly on Charlie’s shoulder though his voice gave
credence to his words with a tinge of anxiety. Charlie gawked at the puddle. It was no more than and inch deep, two at the absolute most. Fresh muck swirled about where Jenna’s small
feet would have landed, if Charlie wasn’t losing his mind. He must be losing his mind, he thought, as
he cast a fearful glance back at Deker, who nodded kindly to him. “Go, lad. Go now,
lest we miss our chance,” Deker assured him with a pat on his shoulder. Charlie somehow knew of a sudden that if he didn’t go,
Deker was going to push him, though the hand rested lightly on his
shoulder. It came like a flash of
insight. What the hell? He thought. What’s the worst that could happen? My feet will get wet.
He thought, mustering up his courage.
He prepared to hit the bottom of the puddle, lest he sprain and ankle,
and leapt forward. And landed roughly on his back with a grunt of expelled
breath. He couldn’t breathe, and his
eyes were blurry as he tried to see what was happening. Then hands were pulling him to his feet, and
his lungs ached for a breath of air, which he was able to draw as he found
himself hunched over with his hands on his knees. “That happened to me too,” came Johann’s voice from next
to him. “Give it a second, it’ll pass,”
he assured. There was a quiet gasp from across the room. Across the room?! Thought Charlie,
even as he looked up and saw that in fact he was in a room. But it was no ordinary room by any
standards. The walls were made of
stone, arranged like brickwork, though they were about the size of his head
each. Golden light danced along the
very textured surface, and Charlie looked to see torches hanging in sconces on
the walls. “What in the Hell?!”
he muttered. Then there was another gasp, and he looked again across
the room and saw the source. A
blonde-haired woman, a couple years older than Charlie, stood as though
frightened out of her mind, wringing her hands and backing toward the
wall. She bumped it and seemed
surprised. A round mirror hung right
next to her on the wall, reflecting Charlie and his group. Behind them was a much larger round mirror,
and Deker stood right behind Charlie with a look of surprise on his face. He appeared to be looking at the blonde-woman
across the way. “Are you alright?” he called across the room in a
forcedly gentle voice to the woman. She stammered and her eyes darted about as she realized
he was talking to her. “Uh… yes… I… I
think so,” she said, inspecting herself as though looking for abrasions. “Yes,” she said with more conviction. “Yes I’m fine.” Her gaze passed over each of them. It was a crazed sort of look, and when her eyes met Charlie’s he
decided she looked exactly like he must.
“What is this place? How in the
world did I get here?” “Bookstore on the Hill?” Deker said, and the woman
gasped, obviously recognizing that phrase. “Yes… but…” Deker nodded.
“It’s been a while since anyone’s come through there. Are you the new owner?” he asked her, still
in that gentle voice. She laughed then.
It was an eerie laugh, thought Charlie.
Here before him stood a very handsome woman, who looked like she could
be the owner of a bookstore, but the streaks on her red, puffy-eyed face and
the disjointed tones of that laughter set his teeth on edge. What had happened to her? he thought, but
knew the answer without even thinking. The
same thing that happened to you, whatever that is. He thought dryly. Deker walked slowly over to the woman, holding his hands
out before him like one might if they were entering a lion’s cage at the
zoo. He made soft, cooing sounds and ssshhhing
sounds, which seemed to only frighten the poor woman even more. She made no move of any kind, but the look
in her eyes was one of complete terror as Deker approached her. Charlie found himself thinking that he
couldn’t blame her, finding that hardened face coming at you, especially as
fucked-up as she seemed to be, would be pretty damn traumatizing. Charlie could just make out Deker’s face in the mirror
next to where she stood and his mind suddenly began to race at the image of his
fierce determination. It all started to
come together. Wherever he was…
wherever they were… Deker is from here.
That’s why he was so bizarre during their car-ride. And if Deker is from here, that means he
knows very little about the real world, despite the fact that he apparently
travels there with some kind of frequency. “Stop!” he said quickly, as Deker was just about to touch
her. Her face showed complete
terror. Deker turned his head slowly
back toward Charlie with surprise on his face. “Stop?” he asked, curious. “Please. She’s
scared to death. You’re going to
frighten her even more,” he said, and Deker saw in Charlie’s eyes that he knew
Charlie had put a few things together. Charlie approached the pair of them slowly, his eyes
searching her face as her gaze swung ponderously over to him. The look in her eyes seemed calmer, though
that could actually just be his wanting to see that, he reminded himself. Deker took a step back, and the rigidness of
her shoulders relaxed a bit. Charlie himself stopped a few steps from her and smiled
as warmly as he ever could. “You and I
are in the same situation,” he said softly.
“My name is Charlie. Charlie
Smiggen,” he said, purposefully forcing himself not to extend his hand. “What is your name?” He cringed as it sounded to him like he were
talking to a child. “L… lo… Lowess,” she stammered, her eyes fixed on him
now. “Lowess,” he said, tasting the name on his own
tongue. “That’s a beautiful name.” Her eyes softened a bit, but whether at his
words or at the softness of his voice, or even at his distance, he couldn’t
tell. “Lowess,” he said then paused,
not sure where to go from here.
“Lowess, I’m not sure what’s going on here either,” he said with an
accusatory glance at Deker, “but you are perfectly safe.” He laughed, not exactly sure of that
statement himself, but recovered quickly.
“The only reason I can even think straight is because these people led
me here… they seem like alright folks to me,” he said without glancing back at
them. “Am I right by guessing you came here on accident,
Lowess?” he asked, taking a cautious step forward. Lowess nodded. “How long have you been here?” “I… I don’t know,” she said, the panic starting to rise
in her throat again as she choked on the words. “This,” he said turning slightly to Deker, “is Deker,” he
told her. “Deker lives here,” he said,
hoping it was correct. “He seems to
know about this place. Was he
right? Do you own a bookstore, Lowess?” She didn’t speak and Charlie hurried to continue. “I love books,” he said, managing to
attain a conversational tone. “I read
mostly fantasy, myself. I met Deker in
Barnes and Noble’s fantasy section as a matter of fact,” he told her with a
chuckle, seeing plainly now that Deker hardly fit in a Barnes and Noble. His clothes alone were odd enough. “Yes,” she said suddenly. Charlie just raised his eyebrows hopefully at her, hoping
she would continue. “I own it,” she said, though it seemed she was saying it
for her own benefit, rather than his. Then it was as though something broke in her, and she
started tripping over her own tongue, explaining what had happened. It came so fast and furious that Charlie was
barely able to keep up. It was plain
however, that she had come through some kind of pool, a spring she called it,
and landed here in complete surprise, and what must have been utter
terror. As suddenly as it began, she
stopped talking and just gaped at Charlie with great round eyes… they were very
lovely, thought Charlie, who then cursed himself for thinking it. He held his arms out wide. It was likely Sprig’s custom to give hugs freely, judging from
his dress, rather than Charlie’s, but Lowess looked so small and helpless at
that moment, that the instinct just came to him. She stepped toward him as though controlled by remote, looking
quite shocked herself to find herself doing so. Then she rushed toward him, and he wrapped her up in a tight
embrace in which he tried to imbue a sense of solidity, a sense of rightness
and comfort. He just held her there, and after a while very slowly and
gently stroked her hair. It was the
most fatherly thing he could think of at the moment. He was aware of Deker’s voice, then the shuffling of feet
and the sounds of the others moving, then the room was quiet again. Still holding Lowess tightly, Charlie began
to realize that he was drawing strength and familiarity from her as much as she
from him, and he nearly started out of his shoes. In truth, he realized, he was just as freaked out as she was,
only he’d managed to keep it together in the company he was with. Then Deker was speaking again. “Alright, then?” he asked, his voice full of concern that
seemed odd coming from him. Charlie loosened his embrace about Lowess’s back, and for a second thought she wasn’t going to let go. Then she let her arms slack a bit, and he put his hands on her shoulders and held her at arms length, gazing into her face. Without thinking he wiped at her mascara-darkened |