The Land of Make Believe

by Michael Arnold

  What is that? It sounds strange, Whisk-pey thought, and then hurried around back where she got a good glimpse of the birds high in the sky. She then heard a snap sound, the clash of metal slamming itself together. This sounded familiar to Whisk-pey because she remembered the metal pieces in the troll’s cave. But the snap of metal that Whisk-pey heard and felt was unlike the metal in the trolls cave. This metal was louder and it latched on her ankle and mid leg like one of her father’s vice grips that he used to keep his building material in place.

  “Owle!!!!! Whisk-pey yelled when she felt a burning pain that started from her left ankle to halfway up her leg. She looked down to see what had her leg in a bind. When she saw what had a hold on her leg, Whisk-pey’s eyes became mirror images of the metal pieces that were in the troll’s cave.

  The pain was so enduring that she flopped down on the grassy backyard of the house. Whisk-pey was tough for a young girl and brave as every courageous man in her world, but when reality struck and took a blatant seat, Whisk-pey was just a forteen-year-old child and a girl at that. Somewhere down the road of her young life, the reality part of her youth would finally sink in and she would only react the way a child should.

  “You, of all creatures that come here to face me, Norvis the great God of the trolls, you know that you and your people are to stay far away from the trolls. Our people and your people have no dealings with one another. Have you come to deal with the consequences of coming here, Wolf?” Norvis demanded, walking from amongst his army of trolls.

  Out of breath and showing signs of exhaustion, Fenris couldn’t get out an answer fast enough when Norvis began to raise his golden tree trunk stick from his side.

  “Wait, no, no, Norvis,” Fenris shouted, “you don’t have to do what I think you are going to do. I came so that I may be granted a wish to overthrow my current leader, Bodolf. Our people need a leader who won’t just rule over them but give them a better place than the trees and the weeds that make Dark Forest such an unpleasant place.”

  Norvis’s hand that didn’t hold the club went up then went down. That was the signal for all of his army of trolls to pause from whatever attack they were intending to carry out.

  “So, let me guess; you wish to be their new brave and lucky leader?” Norvis asked.

  “Yes, I have heard the trolls hold some sort of power that can bring me a wish. I heard of this tale throughout the camp some time ago from the older people and if it is true, I haven’t come empty handed. I have something in exchange for the wish if this is in fact true, your Godness!”

  With a cunning smile Norvis turned his head to his army and said: “He brought me something. What do you know: a Wolf-man who knows what it takes to make a trade?”

  Then he turned back to Fenris. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Whatever you have for me it better be good if you want to be leader of your people!” Norvis said.

  “Amose put a search team together of ten men, right after he saw Kalite’s unwavering gazed fixed on him. Some of the women wanted to join the search party due to the storm and possibly another at any time, Amose suggested they stayed home and watched over their families.

  “You know how kids are,” one of the ten men said, “They like to be in their own world away from us parents. I know I have three girls and whenever they can get away from poppa, they are going to get away from poppa!”

  “If anyone is in her own world, it’s Whisk-pey and her world is anywhere she and that little frog, Ento and that bird Gilma care to go in her imagination,” Amose said. “She doesn’t have to go away to be in her own world. I am sure from all the times we had guests over when Whisk-pey was no more than a tyke, she played her games outside, all by her lonesome. She has quite a mind that is filled with games and other things that she likes to do. I’m sure she is there somewhere here in Make Believe,” Amose suggested.

  “But mothers know best!” Another of the men said. Amose might not have agreed with the “mother knows best.” But the one thing he did know and believed was that he was too hard on Whisk-pey and there was a strong possibility that she could have gone out of the city, especially since he unexpectedly found out that she had left the city before in Dark Forest without his permission.

  “How was your day at school, Olen?”

  “It was great, Mom. Why do you have to ask me that every single day?” Olen asked, walking into the kitchen and straight to the refrigerator.

  “No, no honey you know you have to wash and dry your hands before they go anywhere near my refrigerator.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot!” Olen said. He slammed the refrigerator door back and walked out of the kitchen.

  “I don’t think I had an appetite anyway. I think I am going to ride my bike. I will see you later, Mom!”

  “Honey, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to…”

  “Mom,” Olen interrupted. “You didn’t do anything. I have something I have to take to Camden, and I want to ride my bike for a little while. I guess I really didn’t have an appetite after all.”

  Olen’s mother looked awkward, confused, and not all there, when Olen walked out, holding a notebook and barely able to hold his bike up without it hitting the walls as he took it from the closet and out the front door.

  “Pictures, aww, man, this is so cool!”

  “Now it is like we did last time, Camden, you stay in the lines when you color these pictures and when you have them all colored you give them back to me, is that a deal?”

  Camden Jones was Olen’s next door neighbor and also Olen’s six year old friend who also at time tried his hand a drawing and done ok according to Olen. “Yes, that is right.”

  “Oh no, you’re not going to get me with that one, Camden. I know your tricks. You’re thinking I am supposed to let you just keep those drawings. No can do, you color them and you give them back to me, is that a deal?”

  Olen ran out of the yard and into his front door as Camden licked out his tongue and made a creepy face through the screen door.

  Olen made a face back, but then Camden’s mother came up from behind him and snatched the notebook away from him.

  “No, no, no, stop it, Mom, give it back!” Camden’s loud voice could be heard from behind the screen door.

  “Olen, I’m sorry, sweetheart, did my little rug rat take this from you?” Camden’s mom asked, holding him up in the air by the back of his Sponge Bob sweat-shirt and holding Olen’s notebook of drawings with the other hand. “Give it back to me, Mom. Olen gave it to me, he didn’t give it to you,” Camden shouted. Olen found the entire ordeal funny and because of it he didn’t think the incident was that serious, so he wasn’t going to say anything that would get Camden in trouble.

  “Well, to be honest, Mrs. Jones, I gave the book to Camden to color. The deal was if he promised to give it back to me after he colored every picture then me and him are okay and he can have the notebook!”

  Ms. Jones put Camden down and said: “Did you here that, Cam? Olen said that if you colored the pictures in the book he would give it to you!”

  It was clear that Camden was either embarrassed or his feelings were hurt. Tears welled up in his big wide brown eyes.

  “Cam, what’s wrong? Olen said. “You can have the notebook if you color the pictures in it, what are you crying about?”

  Mrs. Jones looked confused as Camden ran from the door to his bedroom.

  “I am going to check on him. You know how Cam is, Olen,” Mrs. Jones yelled from the slightly pushed out door.

  “Oh it’s no problem, Mrs. Jones. If he colors it or not; tell him that picture- book is his. It’s from me to him!”

  “Thanks, Olen!” Mrs. Jones said.

  Olen sped away on his custom-made bike. It was a ten speed, with skinny and narrow frame, light lime green color and handle bars that went across like a race bike.

  “Naw, Camden doesn’t have to color any of those pictures, I didn’t want to make the young tot upset!” Olen said to himself. “But you did, Olen, you not only made the youn
g tot upset, but by the look on your face you were actually going to take the sketch book back and agree with Mrs. Jones’s accusations about her young, precious son!”

  This time Olen didn’t reply to the make believe voice in his head that spoke outwardly, instead he continued to ride until the voice spoke again. “So, I guess I am talking to myself. Don’t make me seem crazy here, Olen. At least say something: you agree or you don’t agree. It’s alright either way, you know.”

  “Hey, give me some slack. I had been having it rough at school. I can’t seem to shake my bully,” Olen said.

  “What do you mean shake your bully? And by the way what’s his name, or is it a she?” He laughed; the make believe boy in Olen’s head laughed. “Come on, dude, do you have memory lapse or something? I told you like a hundred, million, upon a zillion times, his name is Charles Henry.”

  At the sound of that name and although it came from Olen’s own voice, he felt beside himself, scared, shaken and to the point of losing his balance. He restored his composure by stopping the bike completely and by taking one of his feet off the pedal. The bike fell from under him but at least he wasn’t hurt.

  “Are you okay, Olen? Does he bring fear to you or something? Don’t you dare deny it? I saw the way you almost lost your balance and don’t say it was the bike. You were riding just fine before the name Charles Henry came out of my mouth,” the imaginary voice said.

  “Who said I wasn’t scared? We all are afraid of something, aren’t we?” Olen asked. When he heard the sounds of black birds and saw them high in the sky flying just above a house, it sparked Olen’s curiosity. He turned the bike around in the direction of the birds. What aroused Olen’s attention more than just the birds themselves, was how the birds were swooping lower and lower by the second, then they would fly back up to the height they soared before swooping down.

  “I never saw those birds do that before. Maybe there is something dead that they are waiting to get their beaks on,” Olen said to himself while pedaling at his usual speed. He got to the house above which ten to fifteen birds flew.

  Olen jumped off his bike. The bike fell over on its side onto the concrete ground. He crept up the yard of the house, which appeared to be under construction. The front door was open. One of the two, two by fours that was laying in the yard was now in his gripping and sweating palm.

  “This is pretty cool. After today, instead of calling you Mr. Olen, they will be calling you agent Olen,” the make believe person in his head said. The voice changed now into a deeper, darker, fiercer one, but still childlike, such as Olen’s voice was. “Come on, dude, this is serious business,” Olen replied. His back hugging the wall behind him while holding the two by four in a ready-to-hit position, he stepped out of the tall brown grass. He got around the side and the back of the house and stopped. To Olen’s surprise there was a trap and not just a trap but something or some kind of little person was caught in it.

  As if he was going to get a better look, a more accurate look, Olen took off his glasses, squinted and then walked toward the trap. When he heard the birds coming in for another swoop, he hurried and placed the glasses back atop his nose and swung wildly at both of the birds that directed their swoop at him.

  “Urr, Urr, Urr,” the birds screeched, as part of the two-by-four clipped one of the birds’ wings. They hurried out of there and flew across the sky but not out of sight. Slowly but cautiously Olen walked to the trap.

  Mouth hanging open and eyes wider than his huge round-lens glasses, Olen stopped just shy of stepping on the trap and Whisk-pey who was caught in it.

  His words came out in a stuttering whisper. “I…, I ssseee-seen you before, I…, I…, I know you,” Olen said to himself before letting the two by four fall gently out of his hand.

  More time had elapsed when Bodolf started to realize that something was wrong. He was the only one who was in the foyer of the Dark Forest.

  Where is everyone? I informed Fenris to call on everyone for this meeting in the foyer when the completion of day light had come upon us. Daylight was upon us many minutes ago, Bodolf thought, trying to maintain a firm grip on his rage before he went and sought out Fenris to give him one of his verbal shellacking.

  While waiting, Bodolf thought it wouldn’t hurt to walk through a little ways back into the camp to see if anyone had left their dwellings. From a distance he didn’t see anything, but from right near him Bodolf heard the movement of leaves being stepped on.

  Bodolf drew his knife for safety – a short knife but undoubtedly a sharp one. “The meeting is right here in the foyer, I hear you. Your slow and careful footsteps have given you away, one or perhaps several of you are planning an ambush. If you are, I ask that you make sure it’s your best or it will be your last!” Bodolf’s voice sounded altogether deadly and valiant. The footsteps came closer, and closer. Bodolf raised the knife and out from amongst the forest trees a creature came flying out. In Olen’s world it would have had the body of a lion cub with large colorful butterfly wings.

  “Aww! Man, I thought you were an ambush!” Bodolf said, as a sigh of relief came out of his mouth.

  The creature flew away into the nothingness part of the air. When it was noticed that Bodolf’s guard was down and he was utmost relaxed, faster than the human eye could detect, not one but four wolve-men that favored Bodolf in looks and stature, jumped out from the darkness of the forest where Bodolf stood. They took him off his feet and slammed him down onto the ground. There was a wrestling match at first to determine who would get an advantage over the other: Bodolf or his adversaries. Then it was quickly and clearly determined who was the strongest: the sovereign one in Dark Forest. Bodolf’s adversaries didn’t run but lay hopeless and in defeat as Bodolf reveled in the victory over his adversaries.

  “How dare you defile my reign and disrespect my authority? I know you are not the author of this treachery. Tell me who is and I won’t banish you from Dark Forest!” He held the still conscious wolf-faced assailant by the throat high up in the air and yelled the words at him. The assailant hung his head down in pain and misery.

  “Useless you are and useless you always will be,” Bodolf said under a whisper and a violent temper.

  He flung the useless and barely attentive adversary as if he were a weightless object into one of the nearby trees. It cracked down the middle when the wolf made forceful contact with it.

  The second of the four assailants was waking up from Bodolf’s ferocious attack. Maybe you might have some answer to all of this. Who put you, useless kinsmen, up to attack me and why? Bodolf thought as he hurried to where the second assailant was caught between two trees. With an outstretched arm and a hand that curled in a gripping fist, Bodolf reached out to grab the assailant when he, himself, was suddenly and unceremoniously shoved several feet backward on his backside.

  “If I were you, Bodolf, and if you know what’s good for you, I would stay down and not get up until I am done speaking with you!”

  A loud and arrogant laugh came spewing out of Bodolf’s mouth after setting eyes on the slender, hairy legs and feet, as one who Bodolf perceived to be another one of his own turned people.

  “I am the lord of this Dark Forest ever since I arrived here; I have kept my people safe. And from what I see now you are one of my own people,” Bodolf muttered.

  He was able to scoot himself up just enough to protect himself in case this fourth assailant didn’t really want to talk but wanted him just the way his comrades were bruised, battered, and unresponsive. When Bodolf was in a half seating position the strange voice came from a mouth that was hidden behind a metal mask that covered the assailant’s entire face from the top of the head down to the bottom of his jaw.

  Surprised, and almost horror struck, Bodolf wasn’t willing to give in to what came to him first as out of the ordinary. He hunkered down, and with his tail between his legs didn’t even make the slightest attempt to get up and challenge this masked person.

  “Who are you, and what do y
ou want here in my land?” Bodolf ignored his first mind and went on with what felt natural instead.

  “You ask a seemingly already answered question, Bodolf, self-proclaimed Lord of the Dark Forest.”

  The voice was bold and deep and without a hesitation of fear in it. Bodolf saw the muscles that defined the left arm of the masked assailant, the gray steel armor that concealed the right arm held a weapon, which was not one that Bodolf was used to seeing, but a weapon that glowed a bright blue at it’s rounded top and tapered off down to its end. The assailant held it as if at any moment he would swing it and knock Bodolf’s head clean off his body.

  “How do you know my name?” Bodolf yelled.

  “I guess your inability to lead is just as bad as your inability to recognize an old friend, Bodolf!”

  “Friend? I have no friends who look like you. How dare you come into my land and…” Bodolf’s word stopped as if a plug had been placed between his lips. When he tried to get up, that long weapon with the glowing blue top prevented him from moving.

  “I know you very, very well, Bodolf, but it seems to me that you have no idea who I really am and what I am capable of!” With these words the stranger took off the metal mask, revealing Fenris’s face.

  Chapter 10

  Olen didn’t believe in ghosts nor in the stories his father used to tell him about apparitions, which Olen used to draw in his notebook after being terrified senseless by his father’s horrid tales. Son, I want you to be very aware of what you see. All ghosts aren’t spooky faces that peer out of white sheets and go boo in the middle of the night, they can be as real as you and I.