by Obert Skye
The risk was worth it.
The home and the forest had been Ozzy’s refuge for many years. They meant as much to him as anything. He had once hated Rin for destroying his sanctuary, but he was well past any ill feelings and had begun to think about rebuilding the home sometime in the future.
Ozzy bent down and picked up a piece of melted plastic. It had most likely been a part of a cassette tape, or a cup. Now it was just a dark hard blob. There were burnt pieces of books and bindings scattered everywhere in the ash. He found a half-inch piece of a page that had survived. He could make out three words on it.
. . . time is long . . .
Ozzy moved out of the rectangular imprint of ash and sat down on a large stone near what had once been the front porch. With the house gone, he could see and hear the small stream burping and spitting in the distance. It was acting like it always had, unaware of any changes the landscape had gone through. The missing porch was the last place Ozzy had seen his missing parents.
“Where are you, Mom and Dad?”
The wet air remained mute.
It had rained recently and it would soon rain again. The clouds above displayed their poor understanding of personal space and bunched in closer to watch the boy with the grey eyes and dark hair as he struggled to understand his life.
The boy stood up and began to walk away.
His intention was to leave the site and hike to the ocean, but a familiar sensation caused him to stop. Once again, a feeling like blood coursing through a sleeping leg was stirring throughout his body and accumulating in his left arm. Then, with a rolling whump, all the energy poured into a single finger.
Ozzy shook like a sinner at the feet of an angry god.
He looked down at his trembling hand.
“What now?” he whispered.
His finger buzzed with even greater intensity. His insides began to do battle with each other—kidney against lungs, gallbladder against heart. The sensation was startling, and it sent strings of thick knotted energy up and down his left arm. His body twitched and turned as he stood trembling. His mind sizzled and popped like a wet egg on a hot surface. He was facing the rectangular ashes now and his finger was pointing toward the mess. He could feel his hand grow heavy and his mind heat up.
“What?” he yelled at himself. “What’s this about?”
Ozzy walked back to the wet ashes. He looked at the ruins with renewed interest. His mind and body were suggesting loudly that there was something he’d missed—something he needed to notice.
Walking through the cinders and dirt, he listed the things he could make out, hoping to steady his brain and body with words.
“Bits of book. Bits of box. Bits of wood. Piece of glass. Tin can.”
Ozzy stopped in his tracks. Energy circled him like the rings of Saturn, twisting him and keeping him upright but tilted. He struggled to speak.
“Tin can,” he said, looking down at a burnt metal container that had once held some of the food Ozzy had lived on—food his parents had packed into the house before they died. Food that had filled the basement.
Ozzy’s grey eyes went as wide as puddles. He stopped twisting and looked down at the ground directly beneath himself.
“The basement,” he said excitedly.
Ozzy ran to where the six remaining starry stairs were. On the side of the burnt steps, where the door to the basement had once been, there was nothing but a thick layer of ash.
There was no sign of the basement stairs.
The fire had consumed the house and the attic and had collapsed down on the foundation, completely hiding the fact that there had once been a basement.
Ozzy walked through the ruins, mapping things out, and trying to get a sense of what part of the basement was below him. In all the sadness of the fire, Ozzy and Sigi hadn’t given a single thought to what condition the basement might have been in. It was most likely filled with remnants of the fire, but Ozzy’s buzzing finger and crackling mind made him wonder if there was anything salvageable or important down below.
Stepping over the rectangle of black, he poked his toe into the ashes, searching for any hole in the floor or weak spot that he could break through.
“There were stairs that led down,” he whispered needlessly as he pointed to the space where the basement door had once been. He moved five steps to the right. “I must be over the room where the food was.” He moved ten steps to the left. “I have to be above the storage room.” He stepped ten more feet to the left and stopped just outside the edge of the ashes.
“I need some . . .”
Ozzy’s needs were cut short as a loud crack filled the forest air. The ground underneath him opened up and sucked him in. He reached out to grab for something, but it was no use. There was no time to even scream.
The boy was swallowed instantly.
He dropped twelve feet down into a dark hole and out of sight. His body slammed against a hard floor and his head hit an equally solid wall. Both his mind and his sight went black.
Up above him, the remains of the Cloaked House sat there looking as burnt and lonely as before. Ozzy had disappeared, and the large green forest with the black scar went back to behaving as it always had.
The clouds grumbled, and then, slowly, to mark the mood, they began to drizzle.
Sigi stood outside the Los Angeles shoe store waiting for her mom to pull the rental car around. The sun was low in the sky and the street smelled of gasoline and citrus. In her hands were two bags holding two pairs of shoes.
“I think I love California,” she murmured to herself.
Their plane had arrived at one o’clock and, after eating French dip sandwiches at a restaurant, they had decided to go shopping before checking into their hotel. The rest of the afternoon was spent perusing all the shops that Otter Rock didn’t have. They bought clothes at Top Shop, purses at Gucci, and shoes at Posers LA. The day was so stuffed with new things and traffic and sunshine that Sigi completely forgot to check in with Ozzy.
Her mom pulled a rented Land Rover to a stop in front of the shoe store. Sigi stepped off the curb and opened the back door to put her bags in. She climbed into the front seat feeling happy and exhausted. She loved her new clothes, but she loved not thinking about Otter Rock, or Sheriff Wills, or Jon, or any of the trouble they had recently been through even more. For the first time in a while her mind was at ease.
“You look happy,” Patti said as they drove away from the shop.
“It’s been fun so far,” Sigi said. “Thanks for the clothes.”
“You’re welcome. We should do things like this more often. Where now?”
“Let’s go to the hotel. I’m ready to lay down and do nothing.”
“I couldn’t agree more. Have you talked to Ozzy?”
“No,” Sigi said. “I should.” She reached behind her seat and found her phone in her purse. Pulling it out, she dialed the number for the landline at their Ocean View home. After seven rings the machine picked up and she heard her mother’s voice telling her to leave a message.
“Hello, Ozzy, it’s me,” Sigi said. “You should call me and let me know that you’re okay.”
Sigi ended the call and bit her lip as she knitted her eyebrows.
“Don’t worry about him,” Patti said, picking up on her daughter’s concern. “He’s probably in his room and can’t hear the phone.”
“Right,” Sigi said. “But he was going to camp out on the couch. He also said he’d call me at four. It’s six-thirty.”
“He’s never been very good with time.”
“That’s true.”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll text Sheriff Wills when we get to the hotel,” Patti suggested. “He’ll make sure he’s all right.”
“Good.”
“Now,” Patti said. “Let’s check in, get something to eat, and then watch
movies in the room and eat tons of unhealthy snacks that we’ll regret later.”
“Perfect.”
Patti pressed on the gas and traveled down the street as quickly as the thick traffic would allow.
The darkness that surrounded Ozzy rivaled the deepest void, the cold so invasive it clung to every limb and crevice, and the dampness would cause one to long for a death by desert. The smell of smoke and ash filled the space and made breathing a chore. Ozzy rolled from his right side over onto his back. He reached out into the dark to find and feel a large lump on the top of his head.
The boy moaned, making the dark feel even more unsettling.
There was an inch of water on the floor that chilled his body to the point of chattering teeth. His dark hair clung to his forehead and covered his eyes, which would normally have made it difficult to see, but it was so dark it didn’t make a difference.
Ozzy stared up in the direction he had fallen.
It was faint, but he could make out the outline of the hole he had dropped through, about twelve feet above him. The tiny bit of forest he could see through it was black. The fall had knocked him out and time had been rude enough to continue to run on. It was late at night and he was disoriented, confused, and shivering.
“Where am I?” he whispered.
Pushing himself up onto his elbows, he rolled to the left and attempted to stand.
“Ouch!”
His legs begged him to stay still as his mind pulsated with a sharp, stabbing pain. The fall through the burnt ground had bruised his feet and done a number on his brain. His mind felt like a wad of putty that someone was using as a stress toy. With some more screaming and more agony, he managed to stand up. Ozzy patted his arms and body to see if anything other than his brain was broken or bleeding.
“I guess I’m alive.”
Ozzy reached out and touched the wall he couldn’t see. He lifted his arms, but he was more than six feet from the hole.
Shuffling carefully, he moved around the room, feeling for anything to climb up on or help him get out. There was nothing. The room was just a small, empty space with stone walls, a stone floor, and a cold steel door on one side. The door had a tiny metal knob and was locked tight.
“What is this room?”
It was a foolish question to ask himself, since he didn’t know the answer. Ozzy had lived in the house for seven years, and spent a lot of time in the basement, but the hole he had fallen through was outside the foundation lines. He had never known of an extra room attached to the cellar. Also, the basement was only eight feet deep and the spot he was standing in was much lower than that.
Feeling for the steel door, he found the knob and lifted his right foot to use it as a foothold. He pressed his sore foot onto the knob and pushed himself up quickly, trying to leverage himself to the edge of the hole.
Ozzy reached up and out, scrabbling for the edge of the hole, but he misjudged where it was. His hands grabbed at the wall a few feet below the edge, and gravity grabbed back. Ozzy fell back down onto the stone floor. His head hit the wet ground with a terrific splash and thwack. He saw stars as more pain set his brain on fire.
The wizard-in-training was stuck. As his mind shut down, the world became darker and colder than it already was.
The sky above was black—no stars, no moon, just a dense darkness with the deep vacuum of space to back it up. Beneath a canopy of nothing, streetlights and signs gave the void a fuzzy edge at the point where it rested its dark body against the ground. Mixed in with the fuzz were thousands of people walking to thousands of different places—some to shows, some to restaurants, and some to places other than those two options. It’s not important where most of the people were walking. What mattered most was where the man in a yellow bathrobe and gray felt hat was heading. Rin picked up the pace.
“East,” he exclaimed. “East.”
The wizard walked faster in the direction of his exclamation, and even in a city as diverse and unique as New York, he stood out. Rin walked through the crowd with such purpose that those who saw him coming moved to let the wizard pass. His beard blew gently backwards as he moved.
A group of Japanese tourists parted, some taking pictures as Rin walked through them. The wizard stopped to take a selfie with them and post it online.
Rin then turned down Avenue Ingracias, and there before him was the destination he sought—the Resort in New York, sitting there looking pretentious and old, large glass doors and outdated gold columns covering its front.
“Well,” Rin said loudly to himself, “here goes something!”
The wizard crossed the street and walked up to the hotel. Without pausing he entered the spinning glass doors and spun his way into the lobby. Just like the last time he had been there, everything looked tacky. There was a gold-plated fountain choking and gurgling in the middle of the lobby, its basin filled with copper and silver coins. All over, gold chairs and tables were arranged like stiff bulky treasure. To one side of the lobby, a golden piano was being played by an old man in gold slacks, a yellow dress shirt, and a yellow vest. The old man had no hair on his head, and a back bent from years of incorrect posture while tickling the ivories.
“There’s no accounting for taste,” the wizard complained. “Would it kill them to paint something green?”
Rin took a picture with his phone and then slowly and dramatically looked around the place. What he was after was not in the lobby.
He moved through the area, passing the check-in desk, the concierge’s station, and a gold-framed painting of a man standing in a field near a barn. There was no time to appreciate—or un-appreciate—the art, so Rin kept focused and headed out a set of glass doors that led to the courtyard behind the hotel.
Once outside, the wizard took a deep breath, drawing in the air as if it were more valuable than the air he had just been breathing in front of the Resort in New York.
The courtyard was familiar, but the last time Rin had been here, it had been filled with blowing and blinding snow. Now it was warm, and old, wealthy patrons were milling about, walking along a dozen different stone paths all lined with twinkling white lights.
Rin had no desire to stop and look around or to do any milling. He had somewhere to be and a to-get-done list burning a hole in his pocket.
The wizard marched forcefully across the courtyard, back toward the office of the man known to him as Ray—the man who had caused so much of what Ozzy had suffered. The man whose raw desire for power and control was as ugly as any attribute a person could possibly possess.
Rin stopped at one of the two pools in the courtyard. Sure, he was on a mission, but the lighted water looked inviting. Two old women were swimming; their movement gave the water sound and shimmer. On the west side of the larger pool, a lion statue was spitting up water and letting it fall back down in clouds of mist.
“Stay on task,” the wizard told himself as he took a picture.
Rin walked between the two pools like Moses at a spa—water on both sides and a light wind blowing an invisible mist around.
As he reached the building near the back of the courtyard, Rin glanced about to see if he was being watched. He knew that Ray was no slouch—the man was legitimately evil. Ray surrounded himself with ogre-like bodyguards who loved to harass people.
There didn’t seem to be anyone watching.
The wizard looked up at the ivy-covered building. It was a masterful piece of architecture, a five-story building as wide as the back of the courtyard, made from rough stone with multiple stained-glass windows. Rin counted a dozen gargoyles staring down at him like hungry demons with bad attitudes—their teeth bared and claws reaching forward.
“A+ for architecture,” Rin said, taking a picture. “D- for cliché.”
The wizard yanked open the front door and entered the five-story building. Inside, the walls were painted olive green and the carpet
on the floor was thick, plush, and mustard-colored.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Rin said to himself. “Of course, if I throw up nobody will be able to tell, seeing how the carpet is the color of vomit.”
“Excuse me,” a woman said indignantly.
Rin looked across the room at a big desk, where an old woman was sitting and staring at him. She had hair the color of lavender and a brand-new blue pantsuit that appeared to have just come out of the package. On her desk was a small nameplate that read
Susan Whelps
“What did you say?” Susan asked, her face smooshed together as if she had just tasted something sour and rotten. “Did you say vomit?”
“I was talking to myself,” Rin said proudly. “But since I have no secrets, I don’t mind you listening in, and what I said is that this carpet is the color of vomit.”
“Pardon me,” she said with offense, “this carpet is very expensive.”
“Maybe you just got a bad deal,” Rin said, looking down at it. “Home Depot has a lot of carpet way more attractive than this and at very good prices.”
The woman scoffed. “Mr. Dench does not buy his carpet at Home Depot.”
“Lowes?”
“I don’t know what that is,” Susan said, sounding personally wounded. “This is one-of-a-kind carpeting. Specially ordered from Sweden—and, I dare say, it cost more than most people make in a lifetime.”
“I can see why you don’t dare say it,” Rin said compassionately. “That’s not something I’d admit either. Maybe you could sell it and put the money to good use.”
The woman’s brown eyes became slits and she stared at the wizard. “Who are you?” she asked coldly.
“My name’s Rin. I’m here to see Ray.”
“These are private offices,” she said with authority.