The Land of Make Believe

by Michael Arnold

  Norvis placed his hand below the water surface of the well, grasped a hand full of the water and flung it in a forward direction. “How dare those annoying fairies come into my house and say what is and what isn’t. I am the ruler of the caves, even of this wishing well. Soon I will have my day against the fairies, and anyone who is bold enough to stand against me, I will cut them down.” Norvis’s words not only elevated themselves, but the power within his words shook the very foundation on which the caves stood. The hundreds of cave-dwelling trolls roared with excitement as Norvis flexed his demands and spoke them with boldness. “When morning is at is fullness, we go out and we work as usual. We all have jobs, but now we have and additional job. We look out for the fairies and if we find them we destroy them!” Norvis yelled.

  From several feet away and from high up in a nearby tree, Gilma not only witnessed the verbal exchange between Norvis and his fellow trollss, she also heard every word that came out of his mouth concerning the fairies.

  “Now it is time to find out where you are keeping Whisk-pey and Ento!” Gilma launched herself off the top of the tree and dove down. She leveled herself out until she was five feet above the trolls. She knew if they didn’t see her at first they would hear her long flaps through the air.

  I need to get inside, get Whisk-pey and Ento out and be long gone from this place, Gilma thought, while inhaling fast and hard. The effort of flapping her wings to gain speed then coast while holding a body full of air would be difficult. Before the trolls saw Gilma she blew out the air that she held in her lungs.

  “Whoosh,” the air said as it hurled from her beak and blew out not all but many of the trolls. Norvis, along with some of the other more mature and resilient trolls; quickly found a place that they could grab onto, which would keep them from being blown away by the fierce gale that came out of Gilma’s mouth. Not only did the air take the ground out from under the trolls’ feet but the thin whiteness that made up the air partially blinded them as well.

  “Not just a bird but a smart bird I see. I will make sure I handle you before you have a chance to do whatever it is you were sent to do!” Norvis whispered.

  Gilma didn’t think that with the trolls recovering so fast, she would get inside the two stone boulders where Whisk-pey and Ento entered the trolls’ domain.

  As Gilma circled around and took in another huge gulp of air, Norvis was running on four legs like a beast in her direction. “Let’s bring that bird down, trolls!” Norvis ordered. The few that had not been affected by the Gilma’s cloud of air were in the front with Norvis and those that were still recovering joined Norvis at the back of the pack.

  Gilma blew a hard air on those that were off guard and off target. Some trolls dodged it; Norvis being one who did stop and stood as Gilma flew past him and his gang of trolls. “You have not gotten away, bird, for I, Norvis, leader of all the trolls, will stop you!”

  Norvis brandished his large club at Gilma; the aim was a direct hit. A set of multicolored lights emanated out of Norvis’s club. They struck Gilma in her backside in midair. She dropped down to the sheet of stone directly below her, exhaling all the air she had retained in her lungs until that very moment.

  “Seize that bird and get her back to the caves!” Norvis ordered.

  Breakfast had been made and had already been set when Kalite realized that neither Whisk-pey nor Ento was at the kitchen table. For a moment she wanted to hold her feeling in about it but when she no longer could, she had to tell Amose.

  “You think Whisk-pey is okay in there? Normally she would have come out for boiled eggs and toast. That is one of her favorite breakfast!”

  “Oh, give her some time, honey. You can’t rush an angry kid. I think when she is ready to come out of the land of sleeping, she will come out. Give her some time and some space and I think she will come out and join us for breakfast. She may wait until she knows we are out of the kitchen before she decides to come out,” Amose said.

  “Yeah, I guess you are right, Amose. But I don’t think it has ever been a time when Whisk-pey was mad at us and stayed in her room this long without coming-out.”

  “I just explained that, Kalite. Give her some time then she will be out. I’m sure once we go to the healing well and back, everything will be as it has always been: Whisk-pey and Ento at the kitchen table feeding their faces. Now come on, honey, let’s finish up breakfast.”

  Ento wasn’t as amazed as Whisk-pey was with the houses on the ground as the both of them were with the vehicles that passed by. They managed to stay out of sight since the noise and the way that each vehicle looked when it passed by scared Ento. Nevertheless, they continued on foot while Ento stayed latched on to Whisk-pey’s right shoulder.

  “Do you have a clue where we’re going, Whisk-pey, or you don’t have a clue where we’re going. I am been honest with myself, and I’m going to be honest with you: could you please tell me the truth.”

  “Since you look that dramatic when you said it, I guess I have no choice but to tell the truth now,” Whisk-pey said. “To be honest, Ento, I have no idea where we are going, but I guess we are going to have to find a good place for shelter until we are lucky to meet some of our people that will take us in and we can start our new life, how does that sound?”

  Ento knew what he wanted to say but it didn’t coincide with what Whisk-pey was expecting him to say, so he changed his answer.

  “That sounds absolutely fabulous. I can’t wait to settle down with some good people and eat some good food, yes! That sounds great!”

  For a moment after the shock was over and Whisk-pey got used to the cars passing by, they travelled out from amongst the trees and took to the sidewalk. The amazement came back and so did another car. This time both passengers and the driver looked back at Whisk-pey and Ento. They screamed, so they were heard through the thick pane of glass of the car window.

  Ento screamed as well when he saw human beings looking at him. The car rammed in the back of a parked car. The alarm on the parked car sounded off. A few of the people came out to see what the commotion was.

  “I think we better get to the trees for now, Ento!” Whisk-pey yelled.

  “There was some creature walking about right there on the sidewalk and get this…” the man said to one of the neighbors after he got out of his now wrecked car.

  Whisk-pey and Ento watched from the top of a tree, hiding in the leaves. “Are you out of your drunken mind? The only creatures you better be telling me about is your insurance company!”

  “They look strange,” Ento said. “They kind of look like us but different. They don’t have any facial hair and their clothing looks really strange!”

  “Yeah, they do. They look like us then they don’t look like us. That is an easy way of putting it, Ento. I really want to know where we are. I think until things become a little calmer, I think we may need to travel by trees until we can find some place to rest and get a good, hot meal without being looked upon as weird. What do you think about that, Ento?” Whisk-pey asked.

  “From now until whenever, Whisk-pey, my answer will always be whatever your answer is. From this point on I don’t think we will be separated. I think we are a team!”

  Whisk-pey gave him a soft rub on his head and the two moved from tree to tree until they came to a bridge and an empty house behind it.

  When it came to the Dark Forest, for the most part it portrayed its name perfectly well. All of the Land of Make Believe was filled with illumination that always showed upon the land with an array of brightness, but for Dark Forest it never stopped having a film of gray and dullness that hovered over its land and people.

  Fenris slept well but he would not allow the memory of the conflict he had with the wolf girl to go away. The thought not only replayed in his mind like a repeated scene where he picked up eggs, but the scene where she questioned Fenris’s character, not just as Bodolf’s right hand man, but regarding his duties and what was really required of him ran through his mind again and again.


  “I am more than just one who picks up the eggs and hand them out to families while our land goes through utter destruction because Bodolf won’t do anything about it. All he wants to do is to sit on his barrel and tell all of us how great being here in Dark Forest really is,” Fenris complained. He shook his head in anger, displaying that anger inside his shed, slamming his long hairy hands against the wall. The shed was built with tree branches, twigs, rocks and witch grass.

  He stopped just in time before Bodolf walked in.

  “Oh, boss, I didn’t know you were there!” Fenris said.

  “I just walked in. I heard what happen yesterday morning. You’re alright?” Bodolf asked. Surprise with the question, Fenris didn’t want his response to be as alarming as the question that was so strangely brought to him.

  “Yes, I am fine. Sleep was good and now the day has started as it has here in Dark Forest for as long as I been living,” Fenris replied.

  “Yes, and life here has been great,” Bodolf said. “Dark Forest is not the best but everyone is adapting and making due with what we have.”

  Fenris almost fell as he took a seat in a chair made out of wood branches and twigs. “I was made aware of what happened yesterday morning and I must admit some of the people here can be characters, can’t they?”

  Fenris could have jumped out of that weak chair of his and with his long black protruding claws, hook Bodolf with them until he changed his view on the land and the people who lived within it. But he didn’t. Fenris probably didn’t have the confidence or the strength to do it, no matter how bad he wanted it to happen. “Yes, some people are characters around here!” Fenris’s response was low and timid. He even tilted his head down, displaying his shyness while Bodolf appeared bold, brave, and with steel eyes focused on Fenris. He was unmoving. “My main purpose here this morning isn’t to talk about what happened yesterday but to make you aware, just as I have to a good deal of people already,” Bodolf said, “that there will be a major meeting in the forward of the forest. I think there may be a better place for all of us somewhere else; our time is up here, Fenris. There is more for us somewhere else. More awaits us somewhere else. Prepare our people for the meeting and I will do the rest!” A snarl sounded under his breath and only he and Fenris heard it. “And, by the way, Fenris, try to stay out of trouble. If you are in trouble then I won’t be able to use you!”

  If Bodolf would have stayed a half a second longer, he would have not only heard the snarl, but the throwing of furniture and most of all Fenris’s defiling choice not to tell the other of Bodolf’s meeting that he already prepared for the Wolf-people. Fenris had something else in mind, something that, if done correctly and precisely, would change thing drastically and set him on a course that would put him where he wanted to be for a very long time.

  This time there wasn’t any hesitation, fear, or a mumble of persuasion for Fenris to stay and be loyal to what, in Fenris’s mind, wasn’t a friend at all, but now in his long narrow head, an enemy. I must go, if I stay any longer, things here will only increase in shamelessness and embarrassment. I must go while I still have my pride. I will go see the troll now, and I won’t wait another stupid second!”

  On the way home from the Healing Well Kalite looked in amazement at what the Healing Well had done for Amose. “You look brand new, Amose, but how do you feel?”

  “I think if I felt any better than I feel right now, honey, it would be a crime!” He laughed but Kalite didn’t find anything funny, she missed her daughter and she wanted to see her.

  While walking home, they saw many of the city people rebuilding the houses that had been damaged or destroyed by the recent storm. As they passed some of the construction sites, Amose made clear to some of the workers he would help as many of them as he could before the mandatory meeting he had set for the patrons. Kalite was used to Amose stopping and talking then catching up with her when they were together, so she hurried, left her husband to his chit-chat and went ahead into the house.

  Humm, that’s strange. It is mid-morning and Whisk-pey still in her room, something isn’t right! Even before Kalite checked her room, she checked the refrigerator, cabinets and even the bathroom to make sure she had not been out of her room while she and Amose were at the Healing Well. When there wasn’t any sign of Whisk-pey leaving her room that morning, Kalite was left with no other choice.

  She stormed into Whisk-pey’s room. What she saw made her small mouth drop open as far as it could go. “Whisk-pey, where are you? Whisk-pey? Oh my Whisk-pey!” Kalite yelled as she moved about in the tree house but in her search for her hair-faced daughter all Kalite found was the smell of cracker crumbs and the spill of green juice on the floor. She ran out of the tree house skipping the ladder and jumping down fifteen feet onto grassy ground.

  “You’re living life a little on the edge aren’t you, honey?” Amose remarked as he neared the house. “You’re showing similarities with our beautiful daughter, Kalite. I’m sure she would appreciate that. Are you going to tell her that you leaped off the porch not using the ladder?”

  “No, ding-dong, I’m not going to tell her anything,” Kalite yelled, “because she isn’t in there!” It crossed her mind to slap Amose across his face for making her believe that, if left alone in her room, she would come out the following morning.

  “What are you talking about, she isn’t in the house?”

  “Does it sound like I’m speaking an unknown language to you, Amose?” Kalite shouted.

  Amose wanted to dispute that but found it wise to go along with the “suppose to” and so he answered accordingly. “No you’re not speaking an unknown language!”

  “Well don’t you think we need to find out where our daughter is, Amose?”

  “You know just as well as I do that Whisk-pey loves to hide not just from us but from whoever she felt like hiding from since she was a baby. So before we jump to conclusion let’s check the house first!”

  “I did that already!” Kalite interrupted as Amose began climbing the ladder up to the tree house.

  “We’ll check it again! One last time then we will search the city. Then, if we don’t have any luck there, we will put a search team together and go outside our walls and bring her home, Kalite!”

  After a brief stare down in the middle of their lounge, Kalite said: “Yeah, you better do that, Amose, because you said her room is where she would be and she isn’t there!”

  Kalite walked out of the room where Amose was left to ponder and hopefully process what his wife had said.

  In a far and secluded area of the woods there was a building, which, unlike the house and the facilities back in Make Believe, was made out of bricks only and contained glass windows. This was another feature that Whisk-pey and Ento had never seen in their tree houses.

  Whisk-pey and Ento agreed that moving toward this peeling-paint building would possibly have shelter and food – at least shelter. A smell emanated from the inside of the cracked window the closer they got to the house.

  “What’s that smell? It smells like nothing I have ever smelled before,” Ento said.

  “I don’t know, but just to be on the safe side, I may have to use this,” Whisk-pey said, pulling her sling shot from her satchel, her other hand was ready to draw one of the rocks if necessary. The area, just like the last street they came from, seemed to be empty and deserted. Whisk-pey didn’t think to go into the building any other way than through the broken opening in the glass, once they realized where the strong smell was coming from.

  From the two by fours, to the squares of sheet rock it was apparent that the house they entered was under construction. Ento jumped off Whisk-pey’s shoulder and onto the table saw where he had seen a open can of sardines. Whisk-pey walked around, searching out the place as if she was soon to be a new resident there.

  “I don’t know what you call these but they are really good, Whisk-pey. You should try one before I eat them all up!” Ento yelled.

  “You know this plac
e really looks a lot like home, Ento!”

  “Yes, but this food taste like nothing that I have tasted at home,” Ento replied.

  Whisk-pey found a staircase and checked it. When she found that to be clear, same as the downstairs level, she decided to join Ento in his fish feast.

  “These are called sardines, Ento!”

  “Ok…. Like that’s telling me something. What are sardines?”

  “I don’t know but you are right, they do taste pretty good!”

  “Where do you think they came from, Whisk-pey?”

  “I’m not sure, but who cares, we enjoyed them!”

  After Ento ate an entire can to himself he was fast asleep.

  Whisk-pey searched the kitchen cabinets and found more can goods, most of them being corn, sardines, pork and beans and string beans.

  Chapter 9

  The brick house looked very unfamiliar to Whisk-pey, yet it held a familiar feeling to it. Although that world held resemblance with her world, in its totality it certainly wasn’t the Land of Make Believe. And because it wasn’t like her world, Whisk-pey’s curiosity juices began to flow at a time when she needed to act on them the most.

  When she noticed that Ento was asleep, she thought, with all that just happened and me having him out right before I had Gilma take us to those crazy trolls, I don’t think he will be waking up anytime soon, and that’s good. My little friend needs his sleep. She then kissed him on the top of his head. Finding it difficult to walk without moving her head in every direction every time she heard a noise or sound that was unfamiliar, it took what would normally take ten seconds, several minutes to walk from the room and out the front door.

  “I think I could get used to this place. It feels a little on the cold side here wherever here is, but I like it. It seems like home although it isn’t home. I guess that sounds stupid.” She then walked out of the front door and onto the yard. Only a thought entered her mind to explore the front of the house, when she heard the cries of birds coming from the back of the facility, she stayed where she was.