by Lee Thompson
“I asked you if you think it’s fair.”
Red ran his sweaty palms over his pant legs. “I don’t know if it’s fair.”
“You know.”
“I guess not,” Red said. “Everyone should have a choice in what they do.” He looked out the driver’s-side window as the land around them quickly changed, what was once bright and beautiful and natural, shifted tones, hardened to black rock—trees and road, grass and sky. The Stick Man said, “My real name is Ash. Did your mother tell you about me? Or did she hide it from you, thinking that nothing would happen?”
Ash…
Red shook his head. He never knew what was going through his mom’s head even though he’d been around her his entire life.
“She and I know each other well.” Ash nodded to himself. “Time wears away.”
Wears away what? he wanted to say, but the road was gone—they should have been coming up on M 46, a quick right into town, a left on Blythe Street and the wreckage that remained of Mr. Blue’s longtime abode, his sanctuary and post, but there was nothing but flat black land as far as the eye could see.
The man said, “It’s my desert. I’ve invited you into my heart.”
Red shivered. He tried the door again but it still wouldn’t budge and he didn’t know where he could go even if it did open and he jumped out of the moving vehicle.
“Don’t be scared, boy. I won’t hurt you unless I have to.”
What would make you have to?
Ash scooted closer. “Do you hear it?” Both faces, the real and the projection, separated and for a moment he was a two-headed monster, one’s words slightly trailing the others.
Red tried to shove him away but four hands grabbed him by the knees and shoulders and folded him up like a piece of paper, and the pressure grew in his head, his limbs, his heart feeling as if it’d burst like a balloon, and the darkness deepened as one of Ash’s hands reached into his coat pocket and pulled a black velvet coin purse out. He flipped it open.
The car buzzed like the beat of a thousand dragonfly wings.
Ash said, “Do you dance to the sound of sorrow?”
All four of his hands seemed so large and Red felt so small and bent and the coin purse popped open and Ash tucked him away inside it.
Three
Red felt as if he were floating in a lake, buoyant, something stirring in his hair, pulling it away from his head, a gentle breeze and warm sun teasing his skin. He enjoyed it for a moment, picturing Amy on the shore, her fingers laced together and arms draped over her knees as she watched him, but something tugged at his heart, a sadness he had a hard time getting a fix on because it did not fit with the other sensations.
From deep in his mind a voice whispered, I’ve invited you into my heart. Do you dance to the sound of sorrow?
He swung his arms, trying to catch his balance as he free-fell through a black chasm, the breeze growing to consume him as he screamed, the sun burning so hot above him it transformed everything to ash, hard, baked soil, scarred things.
He hit the ground and bounced to the side, every muscle and bone in his body feeling as if someone had taken a hammer to them.
Red lay there on his back, unable to move, staring up through the tops of petrified trees, sad music playing off to his right.
Someone sobbed.
His heart kept breaking, thinking about Amy in the field one moment, the smell of rot contaminating everything, hands on him, everywhere, folding him up like something useless and trivial.
He closed his eyelids and groaned.
The music grew louder.
A girl laughed.
A boy yelled.
And he desperately wanted to wake to find himself outside the dingy metal shack, with Amy in his arms, other kids from school playing games in the field of broken dreams while angels watched silently, clutching hope for a better world, a pure one, void of human life.
A sound like an angry giant uprooting several trees tore through the woods. Something scratched his face as the ground trembled and the trembling grew until it racked his whole body with fever.
You have to get up…
The sounds of thrashing bent the air all around him.
His pulse settled, though, and Red wondered if he’d gone into shock. The situation with Leonora and Pig was nothing like this. He’d been scared then, sure, but this place and the man who brought him here were much more powerful. He wiped his face, fought to keep his eyes open even though it was so much easier to lie there, keep his eyelids closed, do like so many people did when confronted with something abstract or wicked, as they held denial to their breast like a child and coddled it, determined to make the most of a bad situation by avoiding its gaze.
The ground crunched under something’s weight.
His stomach sank as a shadow stretched over him.
Someone grabbed him by the shoulders and sat him up. He wanted it to be Mr. Blue, to find him here among the blackness of the forest, the sobbing man, the ancient and lonely protector. But he opened his eyes and his breath caught in his throat. A man knelt close by, and as he stood he appeared all of twelve feet tall. His face was wide and flat, streaked with ash and grime. His brow furrowed and his eyes spoke of thunder and destruction, and all Red wanted was to go home, to live a normal life, but he didn’t know where home was anymore.
The sound of the uprooted trees settling made a racket behind the giant.
Red choked out, “Do you speak?”
“Everything speaks,” the giant said, his voice uncanny in its imitation of Red’s voice, only deeper. He patted Red’s head and the boy tucked it into his shoulder, expecting the pain to follow, overwhelm him, but there was tenderness in the giant’s touch. Surprising tenderness.
Red wondered if the thing saw him as some new plaything, a pet, a long-lost little brother who it could teach the ways of the world one minute and dispense cruelty upon the next, because Red had seen how easy it was for people to do that, and he hated it.
He scooted back, ready to get to his feet and run but he didn’t know which direction to flee or how far he’d make it before the giant caught him, probably angrier than he looked now.
Red said, “Who are you?”
“I’m you.”
“No.” Red shook his head. “Who are you really?”
The giant said, “We have to find a way out of here. Bad things are coming.”
Red stood. He dusted himself off, but his whole body was black with soot and he gazed at the sky, at the black sun setting in the distance. “Where are we?”
The giant tilted his head. “We’re nowhere, and we’re trapped.”
Red thought, No kidding? Like I didn’t know that!
He said, “How can we get out of this place?”
“You can, but I can’t. You’ll have to fly to the sun.”
“Great.” Red wiped his face. “Like I can sprout wings.” His anger bubbled up. It hurt his face and he wanted to scream but knew it wouldn’t change one damn thing except make him realize how helpless he really was.
Ash, the creepy stick man, danced through his mind. He heard Amy say, He’s moving, and he wanted to hold her, protect her, but she was back there in his past and all he had right now was this strange world, an aching body, and some giant who acted like he wanted to help but whom Red had a hard time trusting.
He could picture the giant leading him back to some cave under the guise of returning him home, only to find a fire and a large black cauldron with his name on it.
He shivered. He stared into the giant’s face and said, “Are you a cannibal?”
The giant leaned forward and Red looked around for a weapon and settled upon a piece of black rock that crumbled in his hand as soon as he picked it up.
The giant stared into Red’s eyes and said, “I am you. Are you a cannibal?”
Red laughed. It felt good, for a moment at least. But at the end of it, it sounded hysterical and he sobbed. “I don’t know what I did to get into this mess.”
“We all pay for the sins of our fathers and mothers.”
“You make about as much sense as anyone else.” Red dusted himself off but there was no way to get clean. He wondered where he could find water, food, shelter. Those things seemed like the first things he’d need, but first, “Do you know someone named Ash?”
The giant grunted. “I know that if we stay here you will never realize what the worlds share. He has given you tremendous power by placing you in the dark pit of his heart. Follow me.”
With his hands in his pockets, Red followed the giant because at least he had someone who knew this place, someone who acted like they wanted to help.
They walked a narrow path between scorched trees as night settled in, both silent but for the sound of their breathing and thoughts, and that frightened Red a little, that his thoughts made sounds here, for all the barren world to hear, and like home, probably not a living thing interested.
They walked until they were exhausted and mountains rose in the distance and Red’s eyes kept straying to a red glowing star pulsing in the sky.
* * *
His stomach hurt from lack of food. He cried several times, from the pang digging in his guts and the thoughts that his family would be worried sick about him and there wasn’t much he could do about it. Not until he found a place to slip free of whatever spell Ash had cast. And even if he did make it back to the world he knew and loved, he didn’t know how he could protect any of them when Ash came back. He pictured the strange creature folding up their new trailer with all of them inside it and tucking them into the velvet coin pouch.
He seethed as they walked, disgusted how helpless everyone really was if a madman was bent on destruction.
They’d walked for what felt like hours, Red thought, but there was no way to tell how much time had passed. Back home it could have been a day, or a year. He cried again for a while, over all he knew he’d missed out on—not just in his own life, but in the lives of those he cared about. The giant touched his shoulder and said, “If you want to fly into the sun and find your way home, you have to be strong.”
Red shrugged his hand off. “That’s easy for you to say. Look at you. Look at me. See any difference?” It irritated him. “How could someone with such a big head have such a little brain?”
“You don’t have to be cruel to yourself.”
“I’m not! I’m sick of stupid people. People who take things from other people just because they can!”
They stopped at the edge of the forest. The landscape stretched out and up and Red saw now that the red star wasn’t that at all, but a beacon on top of a mountain. He swallowed a lump in his throat, hungry and exhausted. “We have to go up there, don’t we?”
“It’s okay to be frightened.”
“Great. Then I’m just peachy.”
They marched on toward the foothills as the sun set and darkness seized everything around them, the petrified trees like hands ripping through the once smoldering soil.
The giant held his hand. At first Red had tried to pull away, but he accepted it quickly because the creature’s flesh was warm and strong, and he didn’t want them to get separated in the darkness. The red beacon blinked on and off, on and off, and Red whispered, “What is that place?”
“You’ll see.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?” Red fought the temptation to jerk his hand free, but caught himself, realizing how childish that seemed, and though he was only about to start the ninth grade, he didn’t want to be a child anymore. He wanted to be big and strong, grown up enough to find the seam that had split between worlds and seal it up forever so that no one could be stolen away, their essence sucked dry by Leonora and her brood, to feed the creatures who lacked three dimensions. Forward, they moved, but Red wasn’t sure that they were headed the right way. A silver lake gleamed to their right. Red shivered, unable to stop, as he blinked and sucked in a hot breath. The lake hadn’t been there a moment before. He wondered if the landscape here constantly shifted, and he shuddered, imagining the ground right in front of them there one moment and gone the next.
Two moons cast light from the sky as if Ash had opened the coin purse for a moment to peer in and laugh at them.
Red said, “Are there others here, like us?”
“Others,” the giant said. “But not like us.”
“Why did he take you?”
“He hasn’t. He’s released me.” The giant shook his head. “Awakened me. You’ve released me.”
Red wanted to tell him, No, I fell out of the sky and was in pain when you came crashing through the forest in some type of rage. I didn’t release you, but a buzz stirred upon the wind and the silver lake rippled.
They both stopped and listened.
Red toyed with the bandage on the back of his left hand, heat flushing his face.
For a moment he forgot about his hunger, and being angry, and being scared. There was only the mounting buzz, the lake, the giant’s body like one of the trees the wind could no longer budge standing next to him.
The light on the hill pulsed one more time and then ceased.
The giant pulled Red close to him and whispered, “Get in the water.”
Red shook his head, not sure how to tell him that he couldn’t swim, that water terrified him, that he almost drowned two summers ago and—
He opened his mouth just as the giant’s hands closed over his shoulders, and out of the night the buzz thrummed the air around his flesh and goose bumps climbed his arms as a legion of dragonflies cut through the near darkness, the swarm like a plague of locusts, and the giant picked Red off the ground and threw him toward the lake. Red screamed and swung his arms out uselessly, trying to grab anything, but there was nothing there. He hit the water with a loud splash and sucked in a cold, liquid breath that closed off his throat. He dug his hands at the water, trying to defeat the panic, but his limbs had gone heavy again and his forehead grew so hot it felt like someone had pressed a scalding coal to his skin.
The lake muffled the sound of the giant’s screams.
Red thrashed but his strength quickly faded and the terror in his heart grew tenfold as the water pressed around him, into him, stole the last of his energy and he gave up, thinking, I’m dying here, all alone...
And the lake sounded like the ocean, the tide rushing in and crashing against the shore, and he looked up through the water and saw Amy there, looking down at him, and he was so close that he could almost reach out and touch her but before he could extend his arm she was gone and a black butterfly lifted from the place she sat, its wings fluttering madly against the wind and it made him sad. It broke his heart for a reason he couldn’t decipher. Not yet. The butterfly flew up the beach and Red lay there beneath the water, thinking, I’m dead. This is the real horror of it, trapped forever wherever it was our heart quit beating.
He cried then but couldn’t feel his tears, the lake stealing them from him too, like they had his last breath.
Red heard his mother say, “His fever is horrible.”
He thought: Death is a fever that doesn’t end.
Then her fingers brushed his forehead.
Red sucked in a breath of cold air.
She said, “Honey?” Leaning over him now—a pale face, then another, like two moons looking down on him. And the other face made him smile. Amy had tears in her eyes and she held his hand. Red tried to find his voice but couldn’t, tried to remember where he was but it was as if someone had taken the last day and shredded it and thrown it to the wind. He felt like he’d never find all the pieces, only useless and incomplete fragments.
His mom said, “Try not to talk, honey. You need to heal from the accident.”
Accident, he thought. The past couple years of my life have been one big accident.
He wanted to say, Ash…is Ash here with us? Because he could picture the bent man in the corner, reading a book bound with children’s intestines, his fingers caressing the pages, each one a memory for him, of sple
ndid times, of long, drawn-out screams.
Red shivered.
Amy whispered, “Wake up, Red.”
He whispered back because his throat was raw, “I’m awake. I missed you.”
His mom said, “He’s gone again.”
No. He shook his head. I’m right here. Talk to me. I need to hear your voices.
They pulled away. Amy’s fingers lingering a moment that he wished could last forever, but he felt the emptiness she left behind, and Red cried with no one to hear him.
Four
Red woke in his bed with sunbeams dancing among shadows across the sheets. Moving hurt so he lay there for a minute, catching his breath, and stared at his feet because time in another place and different time had stained them black. Red wondered what else was wrong, what he would find that had changed in the world once he put those strange feet on the floor and let them carry him through a house that might be the one his family had just moved into recently, or it might not. He feared strange faces would be waiting for him in the living room, odd voices and a new chapter in his life he wasn’t ready for but partially expected.
He thought, I can’t go out there. I can’t wait to see what has changed.
A moment of panic blossomed in his chest and his stomach recoiled beneath a wave of nausea while he thought, Who am I?
Birds chirped outside the window.
Something banged against the wall in another room.
Slowly, he sat upright and closed his eyes, afraid that it would all be too much, that everything he loved had been taken from him—his parents, his sister, Amy, school. When he opened his eyes again, a raven fluttered its wings, perched on the footboard. It eyed him for a moment and then said, “Did you kill the giant?”
Red shook his head. “Giants don’t exist.”