Bones of The Moon

by Jonathan Carroll

  Weeks had passed since Kempinski, Ophir Zik and our battle against the dancing Warm. Felina, saved by Pepsi there, died quietly one night not long afterward. Mr. Tracy and Martio knew immediately and stood on either side of her body throughout the night. Only at dawn did the giant black dog wake us by baying so sadly and beautifully that it sounded like full notes played on an ancient cello.

  We didn't have to bury her because the body vanished as soon as Pepsi placed the three Bones on her head, heart and left rear leg. In a few minutes only the Bones lay on the ground where she had slept for the last time.

  Martio said the winds would carry the dog's song back to the wolf's family and they would know she was gone by the end of the day.

  The four of us continued our walk to the sea and missed her gentle presence every day. A thought kept crossing my mind like an important bulletin from some deeper part of me: «There is no peace, only rest.» I had no idea what it meant.

  Ophir Zik was apparently the City of the Dead for human beings here, but where did the other Ronduans go when they died? Intriguingly, that thought brought to mind another I had had as a little girl and completely forgotten. If there was life on other planets and it was completely different from life on earth, where did those things go when _they_ died? Or was heaven an Edward Hicks «Peaceable Kingdom» where Earthlings ate with gook-eyed Martians and Ronduans lay down with dangerous creatures from Alpha Centauri?

  There was time to think about these things because we had such a long way to go, all of it on foot now. The lands and things we saw there were as strange as ever – Jackie Billows in the Conversation Bath, a circus where memories performed – but in many ways Felina's death had emptied all of us and made us inured to wonder. One twilight we saw a lone dark horse galloping straight down a railway track at an oncoming train. At the last possible instant, the horse leapt gracefully into the air and took flight. None of us said anything.

  The Slung People led us through the Caves of Lem and the wooden mice I had sung about so many months before guided us carefully over the Bridge of Art. We walked through a forest festooned with unmoving lightning bugs which Pepsi insisted on calling fire bees. The next morning we woke at the bottom of a milewide crater that was black and phosphorescent green and steaming evilly everywhere.

  Food was never a problem. We picked leos and sixhat wherever we found their blue groves, naletense by the side of rushing streams. It all tasted delicious, but I had forgotten long before to pay attention to what I put in my mouth. We ate when we had to, slept when exhaustion – like gravity – pulled us to the ground. We had to reach the Sea of Brynn before the moon's next eclipse, so _we_ moved with the speed of secret couriers carrying messages of war from a king to his important generals.

  I tired easiest and was often the one to call a halt to our flight. And flight it was, because Pepsi had only one chance to gain the fourth Bone of the Moon, which was somewhere in the immeasurable pink waters of the Sea of Brynn. What further complicated matters was the fact that it could only be done at night in the midst of a full lunar eclipse, with the stars our only guide.

  Several days from our destination, we came to a remote cross-roads. Lying in the center of it were eight dead rabbits, their bodies placed so as to form a macabre furred star. Without any prompting, Pepsi took the first Bone – the one he had carved into a walking stick – and carefully used it to rearrange their pattern into a rough circle. Mr. Tracy asked if it shouldn't be a square, but my boy only shook his head and continued the shaping.

  Pepsi made most of the decisions for us now. At times I found it almost impossible to believe he was a child, much less my own. How shocked his father, Peter Graf, would have been to see all this! I wondered why _he_ had never appeared in Rondua, but then it struck me that I had made the ultimate decision to abort Pepsi. Peter was only a small-spirited, arrogant man who'd considered abortion another form of birth control. I had been the one to climb on to that hospital table and say, «Yes, I'm ready now.» I even remembered using those exact words.

  Curiously, however, I still didn't believe abortion was wrong for other women. Our actions and responsibilities are our own: what later returns to either haunt or applaud us is neither possible to predict nor always completely understandable.

  I approached the Laughing Hat boat at the same time as Pepsi climbed in. It was silent now; only the upside-down face was still smiling broadly. Inside it were several wooden boxes full of food and plastic bottles of what I took to be drinking water.

  Pepsi was moving things around inside. There were two bench seats opposite each other. Although everything was in beautiful condition, with the wood polished to a shine, it looked like the inside of any rowboat you would take out for half an hour on Sunday on Central Park Lake. Only here the Sea of Brynn stretched to the horizon and I knew we would be out on it for at least one night, if not longer.

  «There's the sail, Mom, but we can catch the current and use it for a while. It'll take us out even if we don't put the sail up.»

  «How do you know this stuff, Peps?»

  He shrugged and smiled – don't bother me, Mom, I know – all there on his face.

  «Mr. Tracy, will you be here when we get back?»

  «If you find the Bone, yes.»

  Far behind us in the distance, sounds of muted thunder broke the quiet. We all turned from the sea and saw smudges of ugly dark smoke rising thick and fast over the land we had so recently crossed.

  «The cats are dead now,» Martio said and looked at Mr. Tracy. «Cats, perfect fossils and freshwater wells.» The camel knelt slowly down into a sitting position on his knees.

  Mr. Tracy kept looking at the smoke. «Cats, new music and steam on glass. They're all gone. Other things too. Pepsi, you've got to hurry.»

  We pushed the boat to the edge of the water, which had begun to roll and churn moodily. From shore the animals watched as we bounced and slipped our way out on to the grumbling sea. As soon as the brown sail went up, it snapped once and filled completely. Pepsi held the tiller and steered with the confidence of an old salt. He had so many new tricks up his sleeve: talent, insight, magic. What had been the meaning of rearranging the rabbit star? How had he known the proper sorcery to make Felina's body disappear? What map had he studied to show him the direction to go on the sea?

  «Pepsi, what would have happened if you had been born in my world?»

  «Mae would have been my sister, Mom.» He wouldn't look at me.

  «Yes, I know that, but what else? Do you know what your life would have been?» He shook his head and watched the sea. «Look at me, Pepsi. Do you hate me?»

  «You're my Mom, why would I hate you? You came here to help me. You're my best friend! Hey look, way over there, do you see that island? It's called Ais. You should see what's on there!»

  I looked at Ais Island and wondered what it was, what it «meant.» Was it someone else's Rondua, or only another blip of land in a pink ocean, where rocks cried or clouds stood quiet guard over iron cattle with human voices.

  Rondua. You could change things here: save your child from the City of the Dead. But what happened after that, if it happened at all? And how could I change anything when I knew so goddamned little, felt so stupid and weak every time I encountered something new or different?

  «Mom, I think we're there! Yeah, we're there already. Boy, we made it! Look down, Mom. Look down there through the water. You can see everything!»

  The day had slowly ended and the sun, in no hurry, was slipping over the edge of earth. Because we had been talking, I hadn't really noticed that the color of the sea had changed from its original all-pink to a combination of gold, pure plum and some fiery orange mixed in too – the colors of motor oil on top of a puddle of water.

  At first this sharp color change was more than enough to startle me, but then I did what Pepsi said: stared down through the water. My God, there was _land_ down there! Green and beige and hard blue land. The colors you see from an airplane window in the middle o
f your journey. But that blue was water and only then did I realize the Sea of Brynn wasn't a sea at all, but the sky. We sat in our laughing hat/boat in the _sky_, floating softly across a sunset. Instead of watching it from the ground, we were smack-dab in the center of it – sailing across a sky of changing twilight colors, countless miles above . . . the Earth? I had no idea at all.

  I tried to keep my voice as calm as I could. «Pepsi, where are we?»

  «We have to go really fast now, Mom. You'd better sit down.»

  A wind redolent of oranges and cloves drove us steadily forward across the darkening sea/sky. Fish leapt around us and I knew their names before they called them out to us: Mudrake, Cornsweat, Yasmuda. They were followed by red fish that, when they broke the surface, became huge wolves. I remembered Felina's stories about the evolution of her ancestors and I missed her even more when I saw those wolves in wet flight. A school of pure white dolphins swam next to us for more than an hour, our funny boat moving easily alongside them. Their leader was named Ulla and before they disappeared, she lifted us on to her ivory back and sped us forward for miles.

  I remember all of this. It is true and it will always be true for me. If I close my eyes this minute I can still smell that pink sea, the oranges and cloves.

  Many hours later, when the eclipse came, the wind stopped completely and the stars disappeared as one. We slowed for some time, then bumped hard into something which stopped our forward movement completely: a small rock island.

  «Ah ha! My sailors have arrived. Good, good! Welcome, visitors, you're just about on time. Wait a minute and I'll get us some light. Come on up on land.»

  The slick-slop of water on the sides of the boat was cut by the _swish_ of a match. That was followed by the slow eerie hiss and glow of a propane gas lamp coming to life.

  «Cullen, you're the vegetarian, so I made you a couple of cheese and tomato sandwiches. Is that okay? And for Pepsi, there's peanut butter and jelly. Real American peanut butter too! Let's eat first and then we can talk. I've been waiting in the dark for you two for hours.»

  The man handed us sandwiches tightly wrapped in aluminum foil.

  «Pepsi and I already know each other, Cullen. But I'm sure you've forgotten me. It's been such a long time since we last met. My name is DeFazio.»

  He was dressed in boating shoes, blue jeans and a white sweatshirt. About fifty, he had a crew cut and the face of a tired commuter riding in the bar car at the end of the day: nondescript, middle-management, owner of a station wagon with fake wood sides, a mortgaged house, lots of stress.

  «How very right you are, Cullen! I'm one of a million men in a gray flannel suit. Powerless, but I manage to smile a lot in between drinks. I think it's only fair to tell you before we go on that I can read your mind. Don't be frightened, though – it's unimportant. Would you like another sandwich, either of you? No? Okay, then maybe it's best if we begin. I have the fourth Bone. In fact, it's right here. Wait a minute.»

  He reached into a white canvas bag and brought out something that looked like a dark baseball.

  «It's strange-looking, isn't it?» He shrugged and rolled it in his hand. «It's yours if you want it. Just stick it in your pocket and off you go.

  «Hey, don't look so surprised! Were you two expecting a big fire-breathing dragon? Not at all, that's not necessary. Your trip out here in that ridiculous boat was enough adventure for one day, no?»

  Our expressions must have blared distrust because he smiled and shook his head.

  «You don't believe me? Really, I am _not_ going to do anything to you. It's not what you think. The fourth Bone is yours, free and clear. It's the only one you don't have to fight for. Don't you remember _anything_, Cullen? That's one of the great tricks of the game. Some people have got so scared thinking what would happen to them if they were to come out here, they just back off and run away.

  «Anyway, you've already seen what things are like now. Jack Chili may be in power, but the whole scene back there on land is so chaotic and scattered that it really doesn't matter who's in charge, does it? On the one hand, you have your Sizzling Thumb, Heeg, Solaris and good old mighty Chili himself. You haven't met him yet, have you? Plenty of time for that! And there are others too, believe it or not – animal, vegetable _and_ mineral! All of them want to rule. All of them want power. But you know what? Every one of them is just hopeful and silly. Hopeful and silly – perfect adjectives for this hopeless place. The Land of Laughs, it you ask me. Only it so happens, they're the wrong kind of laughs.

  «You know the kind – funny but not so funny? The talentless person who insists on singing at the talent show? Or how about the midget walking down the street with a big cigar in his mouth? You know the kind of laugh I'm talking about. Pathetic!» DeFazio shook his head and took a bite of his sandwich. «I'm not being completely fair. Rondua is a wonderful place; you've seen enough of it to know that. Sometimes I get off this damned island and go back for a quick look. Didn't you love the Caves of Lem? They're the most beautiful things. Even your friend Gregston was impressed. I'm sorry; I'm rambling, aren't I? Here is what you want to know: I'm DeFazio, caretaker (among other things) of the fourth Bone of the Moon. You can have it right here and now. Get in and drive it away – no money down, folks. But don't think I'm doing you a favor. Giving it to you without a warning is the meanest thing I could do.

  «Look, if you _do_ take it and go back, you'll meet up sooner or later with Jack Chili. You'll have to fight him for the fifth Bone. I can't tell you any more than that, but it will take an impossible amount of courage to go up against him. But let me finish the scenario anyway so that you have the full picture. The fifth Bone completes the quest. Get it, and you become the ruler of Rondua. Chili is out and you're in.

  «But _that's_ the biggest joke of all, Pepsi. Believe me! Because ruling doesn't mean you rule – it means you _try_ to rule! You assemble all of these hopeful, silly, _mean_ beings back there. Get them under one roof and tell them what's best for them. And you will be right, because winning the Bones gives you that kind of wisdom, I won't deny you that. But do you think they'll care for a minute? Not on your life! They'll listen to you because they'll respect your achievement. That's something they'd never even dream of accomplishing. But that's superfluous, because in the end they'll eye each other malevolently and hate everyone around them who owns what they don't. Oh, of course they'll listen politely to you. But then they'll run back home and start massing their absurd little armies for yet another silly, hopeless battle.»

  He got up and walked away from our small circle of lamplight. His footsteps in the dark were very loud and he spoke again from a few feet away.

  «Do you know what? History teaches us that the only great rulers are dead ones: the ones we look at in museums and history books and say, 'Oh, how right he was! Why didn't any of those stupid people back then listen to him! Why would anyone want to assassinate that great mind?'

  «Okay, Pepsi, let's say for a minute that you get exactly what you want: you become ruler of Rondua. _Nothing_ will change! Take my word for it! Absolutely nothing. Sure, you'll have the power to control them, but you can take it for granted they'll hate you, _despise_ you even, for holding all that power over them. And once your back is turned, they'll do what they like best of all – they'll pull out their swords or talons or fire and stick them into the nearest enemy. Listen to me! Wise men, even great men, never put a stop to hatred and enemies. They just pull them apart for a little while. That's why Jack Chili has been so successful in his reign – he doesn't _have_ to lift a finger to cause trouble. Man causes his own trouble. Trouble is the only perpetual motion machine there is!»

  Pepsi's small voice off to my right made me blink hard. «I don't like you, Mr. DeFazio.»

  A sad chuckle. «I don't like myself, little king. Your son dislikes me, Cullen, not because of what I have been saying but because I took him to Ophir Zik when he first . . . arrived here. I could excuse myself by saying that's only part of my assigned jo
b here in Rondua, but I won't do that because it's a flimsy excuse. The truth is, like so many others in this universe I've grown completely indifferent . . . even to things like taking children to the City of the Dead. At the same time, I've also become a great supporter of the status quo, if you know what I mean. I believe in keeping things on an even keel and hope that lightning strikes someone else when it begins to fall. I don't question, don't challenge, don't debate. I do exactly what I'm told and then it's time to go home for a drink.

  «In the meantime, I have come to the conclusion that life has a very bad case of acne which it has no desire to lose, because that would mean it couldn't look in the mirror fifty times a day and feel so sorry for itself.»

  «That's a very clever, very shitty philosophy, Mr. DeFazio.»

  Pepsi giggled and I smiled, liking both his giggle and what I'd said.

  «Cullen, people like you love the view from up there on your high horses, don't you? The glory of human virtue! All Hail! I'll do this and one day they'll give me a statue in the park! Here, take the Bone!» He had been tossing it back and forth from hand to hand for several minutes; putting it down on the ground, he rolled it across the sand toward Pepsi.

  «Can we go now?»

  «Of course! Why would I stop you? Do you think _I_ want to fight Jack Chili? There are two problems with being a statue in the park, Cullen. First, you have to be dead. Second, once you're there, the birds shit all over you. I leave those pleasures to you. The fourth Bone is yours. You've been warned. Good luck with Jack Chili!»

  «Our friends, Mom! There they are!»

  Mr. Tracy and Martio stood in the surf, their paws raised high in the air in greeting. What a welcome sight! The uneventful trip back, although hurried along by another fast wind, was crowded for me with worries about our future.

  DeFazio said no more after giving Pepsi the Bone. Hunched by the fire, his face said everything I didn't want to know – bad things were ahead, pain as common as a breeze, thirty flavors of fear. I'd hated nothing in Rondua until him; his complacent fatalism scared me more than any of the growling monsters and moving nightmares we had encountered along our way. I had known a Mr. DeFazio in college, and then a few of them after I'd graduated. To people like them, creativity, excitement and joy were all cute little flukes of nature, as doomed and impossible as the dodo bird. And look what happened to _that_ animal, they liked to observe in between yawns, sighs and weary shrugs. They were summed up by a line I'd read in a French poem somewhere: «The flesh is sad, alas, and I've read all the books.» The way they saw it, you lived and died and along the way you learned not to give a damn, because it all ends up dead and stinking so what's the use?