by Sarah Dreher
She felt a tug at her pants leg and looked down.
The child looked back at her with pleading eyes. She recognized the eyes. They were her own eyes.
“Please,” the child said, “will you take me home with you?”
Stoner knelt and pulled Tony into her arms and held her tight.“Yes,”she said. “Oh, yes.”
When she looked up again, Aunt Hermione was gone.
The child’s body was warm and cool and firm and soft all at the same time. Holding her was like coming home to someone you love. The release of tension you didn’t even know you had. The feeling of completeness. The sense that ‘everything’s all right now.’ And the joy. Mostly the joy.
There was only one problem. She had no idea how to get back.
She stood, the child Tony perched in the crook of her arm and beginning to drift off to sleep against her shoulder. Beyond the clearing there was nothing but the tall wheat, taller now, and tangled. A wall of woven wheat.
Anxiety set her heart to quickening.
It seemed as if the clearing were fading. The benches were still benches, but insubstantial, like unfinished sketches. The grass was graying.
The wheat moved closer.
“Tony,” she whispered, “I think we’re in trouble.”
The child roused, looked around. “It’s all going away.”
“I don’t know how to get back.”
“Wait for the drums,” Tony said with a sleepy yawn.
Of course. The call-back.
It better come soon. No one had told her what happens when you leave Ordinary Reality for Non-Ordinary Reality, and Non-Ordinary Reality deserts you. What was beyond that? Really, Really Non-Ordinary Reality? Bizarre Reality?
It was deathly silent. Whatever atoms and molecules were around had grown absolutely still. She could feel herself beginning to fade.
And then the drums began. Seven sharp, loud beats. Demanding. Compelling.
“Come on,” she said to Burro.
But Burro had disappeared.
Home, she willed herself.
Miraculously, before she could even wonder, they were at the entrance to the tunnel. At last. It seemed as if she’d been away for years.
“Ready?” she said to Tony, putting her down and taking her hand.
The child nodded.
They stepped forward, looked up into the tunnel, waited.
And nothing happened.
Okay, sometimes you just have to take a step back and start over.
She stepped out, and back in.
Nothing happened.
Maybe if they went in a little deeper..., she thought as uncertainty fluttered at the edge of her mind. She took another step.
It was very dark in here. Darker than she’d noticed on her way down. She could barely make out the walls. She started forward.
“Not that way,” Tony whispered, her voice small and frightened. “There’s something really bad that way.”
Stoner pulled back. But there was nothing the other way except to go backwards. Back there didn’t get them out. And this was certainly the entrance.
“We won’t go in the real dark place,” she reassured Tony. “Hang on and we’ll zip right up this tunnel to my world. You’ll like it there.”
At least I like it there, she thought to herself. I like a place where things are the same one minute as they were the minute before. It makes me calm.
She focused her attention on Elizabeth’s living room and all the friends waiting for them, and took a deep breath.
Slowly, they began to rise.
It’s over, she thought, and closed her eyes with relief. It’s finally over.
Something soft and warm and damp and altogether unpleasant grabbed her ankle. She tried to shake it off.
It gave a hard tug and slammed her to the ground.
“What?” she said.
Tony screamed. Stoner held her tight.
She was being dragged away from the tunnel, back out into the Lower World.
The drums took up a soft, quick-paced rhythm.
Stoner clung to the sound. They moved forward a little, then were dragged back.
The light outside was too bright. She couldn’t make out what was tugging at her, saw only a shadow mass.
She kicked her feet, struggling to break away, but the thing was as strong as a draft horse.
Tony shrieked. “Monster. From the cave.” She wriggled out of Stoner’s arms like a panic-stricken kitten and disappeared.
“Tony! No!”
The black mass jerked her across the ground. Pebbles and twigs dug into her back and arms. She kicked again, and it dropped her to the ground.
She scrambled to her feet. “What the hell is going on?”
Then she saw the creature for the first time. It was a dark, amorphous shape that seemed to ooze rather than walk. Slowly, it resolved itself into a human-like Entity in a dark brown cape and hood. Its body was in constant shifting, forming and reforming motion. Where it had passed over the ground, the grass and wildflowers lay crushed. Red blood seeped from their stems.
She couldn’t see its face.
“What the hell are you?”
The oily brown mist swirled angrily.
Exasperated and frightened, she turned her back and started after the child.
Two hands clutched her throat, cutting off her breath.
She reached up to claw at them, but there was nothing there. She could touch her own skin, feel her own nails on her skin.
It was still choking her.
She began to feel dizzy. Could feel the veins in her scalp as her heart pounded. The pain in her throat was like needles.
Still she struggled, until she began to lose consciousness.
The invisible hands dropped her to the ground. The Entity hovered over her, dark and swirling.
“You’re trying to leave me again,” it snarled. Its voice was like a dentist’s drill.
“What?”
“You know what I said,” it whined in its shrill, nerve-rotting tone, and moved closer.
Stoner tried to press herself into the ground. “What are you?” she repeated.
The Entity laughed. It was a terrible laugh. Hard, mocking, evil. It cut through her mind. “The Ghost of Christmas Past,” it said. “Or Christmas Present? Yet-to- Come? Your choice.”
It swirled its cape across her face. It felt like the wings of a thousand bats.
She wanted to curl up into a ball and die. The thought of Tony, alone in this place, kept her going. “Where’s the child?” she forced herself to ask.
“The brat, the brat, the brat. There’s more to life than that.” The Entity snickered. “I’m a poet and I don’t know it. My feet show it. They’re LONGFELLOWS!”
She had to get out of this, but the Entity kept her pinned to the ground. Think, she told herself. Think, think, think.
The Entity smiled. Not that she could see a face, but she could have sworn the black fog in the hood smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile.
“I don’t like to be left,” it hissed. It placed its soft, damp hands on either sides of her head. She had the horrid feeling it was going to kiss her. Every cell in her body cringed.
Instead, the Entity smashed her head against the ground. Pain like fire shot through her brain.
It grabbed her hair. “Do...you...get...it?” it demanded as it punctuated each word by slamming her head against the stones and gravel. “I...don’t...like...to...be...left.”
She tried to say something, but couldn’t form words around the pain.
At last it shoved itself away. Stoner rolled over onto her stomach and draped her hands over her head protectively. She hurt. Everywhere. All kinds of hurt. Aching hurt and burning and cutting and cracking. More than she’d ever hurt before in her life. She groaned.
“Are we beginning to reach a consensus?” The Entity sneered.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
She felt herself lifted and hurled against a tree
like a rag doll.
“DON’T TELL ME YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” The Entity raged. “YOU UNDERSTAND IT ALL. FUCKING LEZZIE!”
Sharp gravel rose from the ground and pelted her like a swarm of bees. She tried to hide her eyes, but her right arm wouldn’t work. She had the feeling it was broken.
“Want to see what else I can do?” The Entity asked.
She couldn’t answer.
“DO YOU?”
A cluster of pebbles sucked themselves up into a whirlwind and hovered near her, waiting for a signal.
She managed to nod.
The Entity made a short gesture, and the day went to night.
The sky was black and cold.
Cold suns, like frozen sparks.
Constellations, but they weren’t familiar.
There was a large star in the center of it all. Larger than the moon, but dimmer than Earth’s sun. Its cold light locked tightly inside.
Even as she watched, it began to shrink. Stars appeared where they had been blocked before. They seemed to slide toward the dead sun. Faster and faster they swept toward it, disappearing into its silver light. Suddenly the star winked out, but the sky behind was still blocked from view. The star became a deep black circle, edged with sparkling light. Beautiful, but evil.
The Entity swung its arm in an arc and the dark circle came closer, picking up bits of iridescence as it drifted through the sky. Slowly it rotated, then became a disk, approached, and settled like a plate at Stoner’s feet. She could see that it was a deep hole. There was a foaminess surrounding it, glowing faintly, like the glimmer of breaking ocean waves under a half moon.
She knew she should back away.
The scene in front of her was captivating.
She didn’t know if she had fallen, or was pushed, or even pulled by a force within the hole itself. All she knew was that she was going down, inside the darkness. Fast at first, sickeningly fast. She tried to cry out, but her downward motion shredded the sound of her voice. She grabbed for the sides, but there were no sides.
Hours must have passed, and still she fell.
Somewhere down below there must be a bottom, and when she reached it...
Or, worse, there was no bottom, only eternal falling through emptiness.
Her descent appeared to slow, then slowed some more.
She didn’t seem to be moving at all. There was no way to tell, of course. No landmarks, no sound. She tried to twist around, to look, but there was nothing to push against. It was like trying to balance under water, only worse. No water for friction here, not even a molecule. Not an atom of air. She was caught, suspended in space. Nothing to do but wait, but nothing to wait for.
She didn’t know how long it had been. A minute, an hour, a month. Nothing around her. She couldn’t even hear the beat of her heart. She wondered if she was dead, then thought she might go crazy. It would be better than this.
Help me. Please. Somebody remember me and help me.
She thought she felt motion. But that wasn’t possible.
But she was moving. Gently, barely perceptibly moving. Upward. She looked around, as if she could see the source of the drift.
It could well be a hallucination.
But she really was rising, she thought.
Rising as if being lifted with great effort, with great care. As if she were heavy, or fragile.
Someone was pulling her out of the hole. But with what? She didn’t see or feel ropes of any kind. Then, far above her, faintly, that strange, glowing foam.
As she was drawn closer, she tried to grab it. Her fingers passed through nothing.
Looking up to the top, she caught a glimpse of dim, human-like figures.
The walls began to take form. Soft as gelatin at first, then hardening. She reached out…
And felt her fingers touch dirt.
With a sob, she clung to the edge. Her heart pounded.
She looked down. It was like being suspended by her fingertips over the Grand Canyon, except that the Grand Canyon had a bottom, and this...thing...didn’t. She thought she might be sick. Her fingers ached.
“Whoa,” someone said. “Look at that.”
There were faces peering over the rim. Twelve young women’s faces floating above bluish tee-shirts.
The Twelve Virgins.
“Cool,” said one.
But they weren’t looking at her, they were looking down into the vortex. She felt her grasp begin to slip and said, “Hey!”
“Oops,” said one of the Virgins. “Yo, all of you, give me a hand.”
Together they heaved her onto solid ground and left her and went back to studying the hole.
“Thank you,” she began, “you saved my life. You must be the search party.”
“Yeah,” said one Stoner vaguely remembered as their best shortstop and worst catcher. “We got your call.”
“Yes, you certainly did, and I couldn’t be happier.”
“You know what I’ll bet this is?” one of the Virgins said. “ A Black Hole.”
“I remember that from high school,” said another. “Like, a star falls in on itself.”
Stoner had an uneasy feeling and looked behind her. The Entity was moving toward them. “Excuse me,” Stoner said.
“See this shiny stuff? That’s space-time froth.” The Blue Shirt scooped up a handful. It wilted, shrank, and winked out. “That’s the stuff that’s left over when there’s nothing left.”
“Does it suck you in?” another asked. “Like on ‘Star Trek’?”
“No, but if you go in there you get stretched thin like spaghetti and time stops.”
They all glanced at Stoner as if expecting her to be thin like spaghetti.
“When you come back out,” the expert explained, “you’re normal again. Except I think maybe you don’t ever get out. You stay there forever all skinny.”
“Excuse me,” Stoner repeated.
“Hey,” said another, “the perfect weight-loss program.”
“Way cool.” They all laughed.
The Entity was nearly on them.
“Women!” Stoner said in a commanding voice. They looked at her. “This is very interesting, but if you’ll direct your attention behind me, you’ll see that my Fog Faced friend is coming our way. And it is not happy. I suggest you make yourselves scarce.”
One of the Virgins nudged another and said, “She called us ‘women.’”
“I know,” the other said. “That is so cool.”
Stoner waved her arms in their direction, damned if she was going to be responsible for these lives, too. “Go!” she shouted. “Out! Go!”
They looked at her with that blend of fear and pity usually reserved for raving madmen. “Listen,” one said, as they backed away from her windmilling arms, “it’s cool, okay? Chill, okay?”
“I will not chill. You’re in serious danger.”
One of the women—Stoner thought she might be the team captain, or maybe the manager or scorekeeper—approached her. “Look,” she said firmly, “in the first place, we’re not in danger, you are. In the second place, you called us. And in the third place, that’s why you wanted us to come to this event in the first place.”
The rest agreed noisily.
“I’m sorry,” Stoner said. She really was ashamed of herself for trying to protect them when they were there—eagerly—to protect her. “That was ageist of me.”
“Whatever,” one of them said.
The Entity was coming closer. “Very impressive,” it said. “Your own private little army.”
“And not to be taken for granted.”
She scanned the area, looking for Tony. The child was still missing.
Stoner felt guilt like a foot on her chest. She hadn’t taken care of her. “What’d you do with the child?” she demanded.
“Too bad you missed lunch,” the Entity taunted. “Baby Bisque. Yum-yum.”
“Oh, man, that is too gross,” said one of the Blue Shirts.
“Watch out,” S
toner said to them. “It’s homophobic.”
“Fuck that,” said the captain-manager-scorekeeper.
The Blue Shirts formed an angry protective barrier in front of her.
It seemed to slow the Entity down.
Maybe, with their help, she could... “Okay,” she said, “I’m going to find Tony. If it starts to get to you, get out of here. Agreed?”
“Cool!” said the team.
They circled the creature.
Carefully, Stoner slipped around them. With every step she breathed a little more easily. The Entity seemed incapable of moving against the energy of twelve angry young women.
When she’d cleared the circle, she took off running, amazed that she could even move, much less run—toward where she’d last seen Tony.
“Tony!” she called. “It’s okay. We can get out now. Hurry!”
“Stoner,” the childlike voice came back.
She followed the direction of the voice. There, at the edge of a clearing, was Tony. She was playing with a tortoise twice as big as herself. “Are you all right?” Stoner called to her.
“Sure.” Tony crawled up onto the tortoise’s back. “He’s mine. Isn’t he pretty?” She bent forward and whispered something into the animal’s ear—or where its ear probably was. It turned and began lurching toward them. Stoner figured its ETA at about the year 2010.
“Could you ask Tortoise to pick up the pace a bit?”
In a second they were beside her. Ah, yes, she’d forgotten about instant travel.
“Isn’t he pretty ?” Tony insisted.
“Absolutely,” Stoner said. “He’s the most beautiful tortoise I’ve ever seen.”
Tortoise seemed to puff out his armored chest with pride and vanity.
“He’s kind of stuck on himself,” Tony whispered.
“And with good reason,” Stoner said. Flattering this Power Animal struck her as a wise move. They were going to need all the help they could get. “Now we have to hurry, okay?”
She sprinted back to the cave entrance, Tony and Tortoise right behind her.
The Entity was still being held at bay.
“Now!” Stoner said, snatching the child from Tortoise’s back. “Run!”
The child scampered into the cave.
“Thanks!” Stoner yelled to the Blue Shirts. She waved. They waved back.