by Gary Foshee
closed in and somehow managed to get ahead of him.
“Caboose, come this way,” said Urium.
Caboose turned and just as he did, he found himself standing
right under the beast.
“Don’t move,” whispered Urium.
Caboose froze. The beast hadn’t seen him yet. It sniffed the
air but couldn’t smell him either.
“Caboose—stay still; the mucus from the crawler has affected
his ability to smell you.”
Brown slobber mixed with prickly crawler hair oozed from
the beast, once again covering Caboose. The Magondrea looked
around, sniffed the air and then moved on, disappearing into the night.
Caboose col apsed to the ground and sighed.
“Follow me,” said Urium. He took Caboose by the arm and
lifted him up. “You can’t stay here. Howlers will have heard and won’t be far behind.”
Urium led Caboose up a shallow gul y to an over-hang up in
the foothil s. He ducked his head in and out and then proceeded
inside. Caboose, exhausted from the terrifying experience, fol-
lowed closely. He walked to the back and laid down beside some
small stones protruding from the ground. He could go no farther.
His eyes closed and his mind raced with fear.
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C H A P T E R 5
The Augur
The owner: The big boss. The one to
whom al things belong.
Brook sat down beside Chesty. “I trust you, Mr. Puller. I guess
I’ve known all along that this was a lie. I just wanted to be
pretty, to be…noticed. To have a man…or my father, take me
into his arms and tell me how pretty I am. Look.” Brook handed
Chesty a small trophy with a beautiful girl mounted in the hand
of a dragon. “Lucky gave me this trophy. When I arrived at the
gate, he was holding a beauty contest. He said I could enter if I helped him open the gate. I entered the contest and…I won.”
Brook cried.
Chesty looked away and tried hard, but he too, began to cry.
He looked back at her with tears trickling down his face.
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Dr. Gary Warren Foshee
“Brook—silver coins, trophies, awards, clothes, and jewelry are
not the things that make a girl beautiful.”
She raised her eyes at him quickly, letting them fal .
“Beauty, real beauty, comes from the deep inner chambers of
the heart. It counsels the mind, which inspires the tongue with a poetic melody. When that happens in you, you will sing a song
that will fill the air with great rejoicing. Then, and only then, will your beauty il uminate the sky in a spectacular rainbow of a thousand colors.”
Brook wiped her face. “Mr. Puller, I can see that rainbow now.
I see it in your heart. I don’t think mine can ever look like that.”
“Why do you say that?”
Brook slogged over and pulled a book off the shelf. “I’m a bad
person. I have bad thoughts and I’ve done bad things.”
“You’re not a bad person, Brook. You may have made some
bad choices, we’ve all done that, but you’re not a bad person. With some help and good choices, I believe you will see that rainbow
sooner than you think.”
She placed the book back on the shelf and picked up a charm
from the table. She looked at both sides and then held it up to
the light. “How does someone like you end up here, Mr. Puller? I mean, you are the nicest person I’ve ever met. How did you ever
come to deposit 30 coins?”
“Well that’s funny,” he replied contemplating what he was
about to disclose.
“What’s funny?”
“You, asking me that question: You see—I’ve never shared
this with anyone before. I knew this day would come, but I never dreamed I would be telling it to a 15-year-old girl—human girl at that—no offense.”
“None taken, this is ‘kind of weird.”
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She walked back over by him and sat down.
“Wel , here goes. It was...let me see...about 35 years ago.
My Papa owned a large mil , the mill I work at today. He was
a wealthy man and loved my older brother and me very much,
although I didn’t realize it at the time. When I turned 17, I was tired of being told what to do and couldn’t wait to move out of
the house and away from my Papa and brother. One day I went
to Papa and asked him for my inheritance.
My Papa was a humble and kind man. But, he didn’t think I
was responsible enough to manage that amount of money, espe-
cial y at such a young age. I became very angry and didn’t speak to him for several weeks. Final y, he came to me and gave me the money. I will never forget what he said to me. He said:
‘ Son, my heart is old. It has embraced love and been scorned by hate. It has laughed with joy and wept with sorrow. It
has nurtured life and stared death right in the face. I don’t know how many more years it has, but I know one thing
it can’t overcome, and that is the loss of my beloved son.
This inheritance is yours, take it. I pray you use it to
find wisdom, not fol y: Humility, not pride; compassion,
not contempt. But, no matter what you find, I want you to
know, you… are always welcome home.’”
Brook’s stomach churned. Chil s crawled up and down her body
exploding small mountain ridges all over her, giving her clucker skin. “Wow, your father must have loved you very much.”
“Yes…very much,” reminisced Chesty, fighting back the
tears, his heart jumping inside.
“So, what happened?”
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Dr. Gary Warren Foshee
“Wel , I took the money and traveled all over the world. It
was wonderful. I had lots of friends and the girls thought I was so handsome.”
He laughed, shook his head, and continued.
“I bought my friends nice clothes. We ate the best food
money could buy. I had the best of everything, but soon my
money ran out and so did my friends. When the delusions of
grandeur ended, I didn’t even have enough money to make it
home. I looked for work, but times were hard. I final y got a job feeding bush squealers from a mean, stingy old man. I was so
poor and hungry I longed to fill my bel y with the slop I fed them.
After several months, I final y came to my senses and decided
to go home and beg for my father’s forgiveness. After a long journey, and to this day I’m still not sure how I found it, I rounded a corner and there it was— The Scorpion Pass Gate. As I approached, I met Lucky Lucy; he saw me coming a mile away. He told me he would restore my lost inheritance and make everything the way it was before. So, I went through the gate and deposited the coins.”
Brook sat calmly for a second and thought, Lucky sure does
have a way of knowing what our weaknesses are. She waited a few
more seconds and then asked, “And?”
“It was like I told you, a door opened up and I ended up in a
valley of bones. I was scared, real y scared. There were all kinds of evil creatures and bones...Shhh.”
Chesty turned his ears and listened.
Footsteps beat in the dirt outside the tree.
“I think someone is coming,” whispered Chesty.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Hurry, hide.”
“Where?”
Chesty and Brook scrambled around the room looking f
or
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THE REDMADAFA
a place to hide. Chesty spotted the closet. “Over there, in the
closet.”
No sooner had they closed the door, when three of Slithler’s
tunnel guards came walking in. Each guard carried a hand-
carved staff in his hand—tunnel guards have a mushroom head,
eyes that stick out of their sockets and swivel around, and their bodies look like plants of various kinds.
“It must be broken,” said one of the guards.
“It can’t be broken. It’s never been broken,” said another.
“Well it must be broken now. Lucky said two came in here
and the sensors never went off in the hole signaling they had
dropped through.”
“Maybe they didn’t deposit the coins,” said the other guard.
They looked at each other dumbfounded and then smacked
him upside the head with their staff. “Everyone deposits the
coins, stupid.”
He rubbed his head and moved away from their reach, “Then
maybe they’re still in here.”
Chesty and Brook peeked through the crack in the door. They
moved to the back of the closet but there was no place to hide.
The guards looked at each other, “Yeah, maybe they’re still
in here. Search the place from top to bottom,” yelled the leader.
They spread out and searched behind the bookshelves and
around the corners. Then they looked at the closet and raised
their staffs. The guard took hold of the door knob, yanked it
open, and plunged his staff inside yelling, “Gotcha!”
The closet was small with nowhere to hide. But it was empty.
There wasn’t anyone in there. He poked his staff around and then closed the door and walked over to the stone.
“You see, I told you. It’s broken.”
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Dr. Gary Warren Foshee
“Oh yeah,” said the leader. He reached over and pulled a
secret lever, plummeting his friend down the dark muddy tunnel.
“Nope, it works.” With that, he turned and exited. The other guard looked at him and asked, “What are we going to tell Lucky?”
The leader looked at him with a drawn face. “We? You’re
going to tell him it’s broken.”
“But…,” said the other guard scratching his head with his
staff.
In the closet, Chesty removed the cloak from them. The cloak
was an invisible cloak that, when draped over something, made
the object completely disappear.
“That was close,” said Chesty. He snuck out of the closet and
made sure they were all alone.
“It’s all true. It’s all true,” said Brook following close behind.
She walked out of the closet and dusted off her shirt. She walked over to the stone and ran her hand over the engraving and wondered how she could have been so foolish. It looked like her
dreams would have to be put on hold a while longer. There would
have to be another way, a better way, to heal her mind from the
sickness it suffered. What Brook didn’t realize though, was that healing—a spiritual healing—was already taking place, as she
would soon discover.
“Sorry for ever doubting you Mr. Puller.”
“That’s okay Brook. I believed it too. Everybody believes
it,” said Chesty. Everybody wants to be somebody—somebody
important, beautiful, talented—somebody that others look up
too and respect. It’s what gets us all—The Lie: The lie that we can be like God.”
“What are we going to do Mr. Puller?”
Chesty walked over and stood right in front of Brook. He
grabbed both of her shoulders gently and in his best ‘Fatherly’
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THE REDMADAFA
voice replied, “You are going to go back the way you came and
never come here again.”
“But what about you? You can’t stay here,” responded Brook,
not realizing that she was actual y concerned about someone else other than herself.
Chesty stuck out his hand.
“Brook, give me the coin. I have to save my boy.”
Brook, still holding the coin, pulled her hand back.
“Mr. Puller you can’t go down there again.”
“I’m not afraid anymore, Brook. I do not fear Lucky and his
servants any longer.”
Brook didn’t say another word. She could see the love, the
love of a father longing to be with his son. She reached up and
wrapped her arms around Chesty’s neck and squeezed tightly.
“Thank you. Thank you for telling me the truth,” she
whispered.
Chesty grinned and hugged her back. He took the coin from
her frail little hand and walked over to the stone and deposited it.
He was ready. He was ready to face the challenge of uncertainty
in a valley of death to save his son, even if it cost him his life.
“Wait!” yelled Brook. “You never told me how you got out of
the valley.”
Click!
Chesty smiled, “The Augur,” and he was gone.
Brook stood in the middle of the Titan motionless. She
stared at the trap door and repeated The Name in her mind. The
Augur; he’s been with me all along. He led me to the temple that night. He knew what I was going through. Even in my darkest
times, when my friends were gone, he was there. Brook fell to
her knees, looked up and cried, “Great Augur, if you can hear me 97
Dr. Gary Warren Foshee
now, please help me get out of here. I believe in you. I believe in you now.”
She looked around for a way out of the Titan but there were
no doorknobs on the inside. She went from door-to-door final y
finding the one she had entered through. When she touched it, it sprang open. She ran outside and headed for the stream.
Behind her, small dust clouds rose from her tracks and briefly
gave chase as she followed the trail back to the stream, but to her surprise, the rock bridge was gone. Behind her, bogies formed
into a long black face and shouted, “Traitor!” The sound waves
from their voice blew over all the vegetation along the path and knocked her to the ground; her chin bounced off the dirt knocking her senseless for a moment.
Scared and lying on the ground, she glared through sharp
blades of grass. Hundreds of Gogs (human slaves of Slithler that had become the evil found in their hearts) infiltrated the garden searching for her. She crawled upstream through the tall
grass searching for a safe place to cross. The grass cut into her arms and legs causing them to bleed sending a pungent aroma
of blood floating up into the air, which then permeated through
the garden.
“There she is. Get her!” yelled a gog from across the stream,
whiffing the smell of fresh delicious young blood.
She whirled around and disappeared through a grove of
trees. She ran in-between the roots and hid in a large patch of
mushy marts. She lay down flat under a cluster of them and tried to control her breathing. Panic rushed through her muscles and
fear seized her mind, momentarily disorienting her. Unfamiliar
with the garden she listened for the slightest sound, not want-
ing to feel the cold steal of a gog’s blade piercing her side. Gogs 98
THE REDMADAFA
crept around the trees looking in every interlocking root, crevice, and bush.
Brook froze and stopped breathing.
A gog passed within inches of her and stabbed his blade into
the patch. He slashed the heads off of several mushy marts and
then moved on to the next patch.
Brook sighed and breathed calmly. With vague apprehen-
sions, she started to stand up. From above, a long skinny crooked branch reached down and grabbed her leg. It whisked her high
into the air as if taking her to the gallows.
“She’s here! She’s here!” shouted bogies, circling in and out of the branches.
The gogs turned around and surrounded her.
“Kill her! Kill her!” chanted the bogies over and over.
The tree released its grip, dropping her to the ground. The
gogs drew their swords and charged.
Brook hunkered down and closed her eyes. Her life flashed
before her as the circle stopped. Life what a wonderful gift, a precious gift, often taken for granted. For many years she had abused her body and denied it the attention and nutrition it so desperately needed. Now, on the brink of death, everything inside her
wanted to live. She wanted to experience life without shame and
guilt. She wanted to experience life to its fullest, in the open, with no secrets, no purging in the bathroom; a life of trust, living in confidence, with purpose and hope.
From out of nowhere, gogs flew backwards through the air.
Others were cut down and flung across the garden—what Brook
couldn’t see were the celestial guards fighting for her, protecting her from harm.
She did not understand what was happening, but glimpsing
the opportunity, she ran. She darted back into the trees and down 99
Dr. Gary Warren Foshee
a path of stones. The narrow path weaved casual y through the
trees and came out at a shrine of statues. She stopped and spun
around and then squeezed through the statues searching for a
way out.
The statues grabbed and hissed at her. Others moved and
boxed her in. She spun around and around dazed and confused,
but it was only fear that made her hal ucinate. She ran out of the statues and across a field of blue tongue sickles down to a set of stone stairs. The stairs curved under an arch of branches, back
down to the stream. Brook ran down and stopped on a stone pad
near the bank. She entered the shallow water and started to cross.
Slithler, The Great Serpent, slithered around the gate and