Tree Root Cavern and the Cryptic Discovery

by D. B. Magee

  William looked inquisitively at his sister. “What are you thinking, Stacy?”

  “I’m thinking,” Stacy said, “that if it was possible, then we could astral travel simply by using the computer screen and a pair of headphones.”

  Ryan walked to the dresser and snatched up a cellophane-wrapped toothpick left from a prior night’s take out. “What good would that do ya, Stacy?” he asked, unwrapping the cylindrical wooden pick. “It seems easier to just use the glasses.” He stuck the toothpick in his mouth.

  Stacy looked at the boys with a raised eyebrow. “Well, if we can transfer the signals to one computer, then I can use the network . . .”

  “To transfer the signals to all the computers,” William blurted out with a snap of his fingers. “Stacy, you’re a genius!”

  “What’d I miss?” Ryan asked, confused once again by the twins’ techno-talk.

  Stacy explained, “If we can duplicate the signals across all of our computers, then we can all travel to the spirit world together.”

  “Y’all want me to do this again?” Ryan choked, remembering his experience with Captain Blood. “Thanks, but no thanks. Once was enough for me.”

  “Come on, Ryan,” Stacy urged. “According to our parents, there’s a wondrous land over there where children live, and I want to see it. Just think of the adventure we could have if we did this as a group. Besides,” she added, teasing, “you don’t have anything to worry about. We’ll protect you.”

  “Ha, Ha, very funny,” Ryan said, folding his arms.

  “I’ve got it!” William suddenly burst out. “I can make a cable with a Y adapter that will couple mini-microphones with the boom arm speakers. Then all we have to do is plug it into the audio–in port on your computer.”

  Stacy pondered this for a moment. “That’ll work for the audio signals—but what about the video?”

  “That’s simple,” William said. “Just aim the computer’s camera at one of the lenses.”

  Stacy mulled this over for a moment. “That could work,” she said. “We could use my laptop. We just need to figure out how to make some kind of mount to hold the glasses in front of the web cam.”

  “Where’s the web cam?” Ryan asked.

  Stacy retrieved her laptop. “Here, in the top edge of the screen.” She pointed to it.

  Ryan chewed on his toothpick as he thought of an idea. “I can make that for y’all,” he volunteered. “I reckon there’s bound to be something in your dad’s scrapyard I can jury-rig together.”

  “Great!” Stacy chimed. “Let’s get started.” She powered up her laptop. “I’ll start writing the interface program for the network.”

  William leapt off the bed and headed for the door. “Now, where did I put my soldering iron?” he said, scratching his head.

  Ryan chuckled. “Oh! I guess we’re doing this now.”

  The Astral Plane

  “WOW! That was amazing!” Lisa cried, spinning around in the pneumatic chair and pulling off the Frequency Glasses. “You guys were right . . .” She stopped mid-sentence. Her joyous expression dimmed as she glanced around the room.

  Sitting near Lisa at the desktop computer, Stacy stared intently at the screen while her fingers tapped away in flurried succession at the keyboard. Over in another corner of the room, hunched over a fold-out table, William appeared as a mad scientist might, complete with safety goggles and smut smudges on his cheeks. A thin trail of smoke rose into the air in front of him. Beside him, leaning over the dresser, his face contorted, Ryan strained as he pulled and pried on a piece of steel. The only sounds to be heard in the room were the rapid clicking of computer keys, the buzzing of a soldering iron and the scraping of pliers on metal.

  “What’s going on?” Lisa demanded.

  Without interruption to the program she was writing, Stacy replied, “Lisa, you’re not going to believe this, but I think we’ve found a way to take a trip to the spirit world as a group.”

  “No way!” Lisa said in excited disbelief. “Really?”

  Later, with Lisa caught up on the details of the plan, the necessary hardware fabricated, and the network interface program completed, William left the room in search of some final accessories. The other three lounged about lazily, while Lisa related her adventures with the Frequency Glasses. Even though she never actually made it to the spirit world, or encountered any spirits, she had, however, astral-traveled about the Earth plane with great amusement. She told how she was able to visit anyplace she wanted, simply by thought—and that the speed it took to get from one place to the next was almost instantaneous.

  Returning from his industrious search-and-find mission, William entered the room carrying a piece of foam rubber and some plastic clamps.

  “Did ya find what ya need, Willy?” Ryan asked, leaning casually against the dresser.

  “Yup. Now all we have to do is hook it up.” William handed Ryan the piece of foam rubber. “Here, shove this in between the bracket and the back of the lens. It will steady the glasses and keep them from moving around.”

  “Good idea!” Ryan said, taking the piece of foam rubber. Then, retrieving the “S” shaped bracket he’d made earlier, and the Frequency glasses themselves, he mounted everything to the laptop. With the bracket and the ear pieces of the Frequency Glasses sitting along the top edge of the laptop’s screen, and one lens supported inside the bracket itself, the other lens was free to float in front of the web cam.

  Using the clamps, William connected the dual microphone cable he’d fabricated to the boom arm speakers. “Stacy,” he said, “you’re up!”

  Tapping rapidly on the computer’s keyboard, Stacy caused various scripting windows to pop up and disappear as she configured the glasses to work over the home network. “Okay, I think that’s got it,” she announced. “Let’s see if it works.” She pulled a small set of headphones from a desk drawer, positioned them over her ears, plugged their cable into the computer’s headphone jack, and clicked on a shortcut entitled, Audio Frequencies.

  Two soft, high-pitched tones oscillated in Stacy’s ears. She clicked on the second shortcut she’d created, Visual Frequencies. A new full-screen window opened, displaying a pattern of flashing lights.

  Instantly, Stacy felt the familiar sensation of being sucked from her body. A moment later—and of course unseen by her friends—she manifested nearby in astral form, a wispy, wavering, floating duplicate of her real self, clothes and all.

  Satisfied with the outcome, Stacy averted her eyes from the flashing screen, thus disengaging herself from the astral realm. “We did it guys! It works,” she exclaimed in joy.

  Cheers abounded throughout the room.

  Stacy turned to the network and quickly got to work implementing the process on the other computers. “Okay,” she said, a few moments later. “I’ve sent each of you a file called Spirit Window. Create a shortcut to it, and then activate it. This will produce the signals you need. Don’t forget to use headphones.” She turned back to the computer screen and quickly reentered the astral plane.

  Ryan stared blankly at Stacy. “Create a what?”

  “Don’t worry,” William said, “I’ll show you.”

  “Hurry up, guys,” Stacy said, watching them through her astral eyes. “It’s lonely out here.”

  Lisa wasted no time and pushed past the boys. “Stacy, don’t go anywhere,” she hollered. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Come on, Ryan,” William urged. “I’ll help you get set up.”

  A short time later, one by one, the three kids entered the astral plane, each beginning their celestial journey in their own rooms.

  Lisa was first to join Stacy in her room by instantaneous transprojection; the trick she’d discovered while astral traveling.

  Stacy was busy amusing herself with the limitlessness of her aerial form by flying across the room, performing a series of continuous somersaults. “This is great!” she squealed. Lisa watched with amazement as Stacy then dove speedily from the ceiling, down
under her bed and out the other side, her body automatically shrinking, stretching and deforming as needed.

  Lisa floated over to the mirror on Stacy’s dresser and giggled. This is strange, she thought. I can’t see my reflection. She waved her arms to see if she could detect any trace of herself whatsoever in the mirror. Her reflection remained absent. It was then, however, that she discovered something truly amazing. She turned to her friend. “Stacy! Look,” she cried, waving her left arm. “As a ghost I’m not crippled!”

  Down the hall, William was unprepared for weightless locomotion. “HELP!” he cried out. “How do I steer me?”

  Ryan received the mental message and took off through the walls to help his friend. He arrived to find William wavering and bobbing upside-down, like a bottle on an ocean wave. With a tug on William’s ankle, Ryan righted his inverted friend. “What’s the problem pard?”

  “I kind of got discombobulated,” William said sheepishly. “The last time I was in astral form, my parents came to me. I didn’t have to move around. So, I’m not exactly sure how to do this.”

  “It’s a cinch, Willy,” Ryan said. “All ya gotta do is concentrate on where ya want to go. Just think, forward, if you want to go forward. And, stop, if you want to stop.” Ryan demonstrated by making a few maneuvers around the room. “Got it?”

  “Yeah—I think so,” William answered, unassured.

  “Okay, let’s go.” Ryan escorted William down the hallway, their wafting, aery forms picking up speed as they proceeded.

  Back in Stacy’s room, astral Stacy moved about like a professional gymnast and ballerina all in one, except that she performed her aerial acts without apparatus or grounding. Just then, right in the middle of a maneuver, William arrived, slamming right into and through Stacy, causing her to become a swirling mass of mist.

  (One of the laws in the spirit world dictates that no harm shall come to anyone, and as such, allows their bodily form to dissipate and become gaseous during any substantial force, be it friction, impact or whatever. Once the force is removed, their bodies again become spiritually material.)

  Ryan followed directly, and chuckled at the spectacle.

  Lisa rushed to Stacy’s aid. “Are you okay?”

  Stunned for a moment, Stacy finally re-formed and patted her torso with both hands. “Yeah, I’m fine. But—what was that?”

  Lisa pointed to where Ryan was pulling William by the legs in order to remove his head and shoulders from being embedded in the wall.

  The girls laughed. “It serves you right!” Stacy heckled.

  William righted himself and smiled stupidly. “Sorry, Sis!”

  “All right,” Ryan said. “You wanted me to be part of this; here I am. So, what do ya say we get this show on the road?”

  “Where should we go?” Lisa asked.

  “I want to try and find that place Dad told me about, where spirit children live,” Stacy replied.

  “Do you know how to get there, Sis?” William asked.

  With the finesse and agility of a bird, Stacy dove through the air once again, performing another acrobatic maneuver. “No,” she answered. “Not really. He just said he’d heard about it, and that we should try to find it.”

  “Well then,” Ryan said, ascending toward the ceiling, “I reckon we just head out and start exploring.”

  William quickly began a sort of dog paddling maneuver toward Ryan. “Wait! Don’t leave me!”

  Ryan looked back. “Remember, Willy, just think about where you want to go.”

  William grabbed hold of Ryan’s wispy boot. “How am I supposed to do that when I don’t know WHERE we’re going?”

  Ryan laughed while assuming a superhero stance. “Just think, up, up and away!” In a flash, he soared up through the ceiling, with William still clinging to his foot and flapping like a flag behind him.

  Lisa looked at Stacy and rolled her eyes. “Oh, great!” she said. “He’s not happy with just being a cowboy. Now he wants to be Superman as well.”

  Stacy giggled. “Well, he can’t be Superman, that’s already taken. If he wants to be a superhero, he’ll need his own identity.”

  Lisa motioned for Stacy to follow her as she started out after the boys. “How about Cosmic Cowboy?”

  “That’s good,” Stacy acknowledged. “And for his uncoordinated compadre, we’ll call him Wavering Willy.” The girls laughed as they floated leisurely through the ceiling, on their way toward the celestial unknown.

  Sometime later, the gang (now more accustomed to this mode of travel) soared rapidly through outer space, enjoying all of the magnificent sights along the way. William, however, still trying to maintain his balance, traveled sprawled out like a skydiver.

  Ryan fell back from his position as lead and formed up next to his friend. “Hey guys, ya wanna see a human Ferris wheel?” Before William could object, Ryan grabbed hold of his foot and gave it an outwardly shove.

  William began cartwheeling through space.

  Stacy and Lisa came up alongside William, pointing and laughing.

  “He looks like a pinwheel without the stick.” Lisa said.

  “Hel-l-lp! Sto-o-op meee!” William cried out.

  “Alright, keep your shirt on, Willy,” Ryan said, reaching into William’s swirling mass. The friction caused his friend to slow to a stop. “I was just having a bit of fun with ya, buckaroo.”

  “Well, knock it off,” William grumbled, still sprawled out.

  The kids were just passing a spectacular blue and gold star-forming region, when Ryan took hold of William’s legs and pushed them together. “Here Willy, let me help you stabilize.”

  With William’s arms still extended, Stacy saw an opportunity for some mischief of her own.

  William sensed his sister’s forthcoming antics. “Stacy, whatever you’re up to, you’d better not do it!”

  Stacy zipped over next to her brother, grinned mischievously, and slapped down on one of his arms. William began spinning through space like an arrow, with Ryan still holding his ankles.

  The girls once again burst out laughing. “Whoohoo!” Stacy hollered. “Now all we need is a dart board!”

  Eventually, Ryan flew free of William’s twirling torso. He cleared his dizziness with a quick shake of his head, and then, knowing now how it felt, rapidly raced to William’s aid, where he found his buddy far ahead, still screaming and streaking through the cosmos.

  Stacy and Lisa continued laughing uncontrollably as the darting duo disappeared into the distant cosmic dust.

  With the shenanigans now behind them, the four friends streaked on aimlessly, taking in the sights.

  “Hey, look over there!” William said, pointing far off to their right at three mammoth columns of dark dust and gas, sitting before a beautiful backdrop of multi-toned blue-greens. “I think that’s the Eagle Nebula.”

  “It looks like something straight out of the Grand Canyon,” Ryan commented.

  Continuing on deeper into space, they passed many other dramatic and striking scenes. One of these was the Crab Nebula, which, according to Lisa, looked like a fuzzy green and brown critter that was being electrocuted.

  Stacy’s favorite was the Cat’s Eye Nebula, which resembled a conch shell. In fact, she even tried to fly into it, until she realized that it was just gas and space dust, and didn’t have any real shape or solidity. She lost interest and returned to the others.

  William, now finally able to somewhat control his motility, paused to take in the fantabulous view of the Sombrero Galaxy, which when viewed from its edge looks like a translucent UFO.

  Finally becoming bored with all of this, Ryan floated over wearily to his friends. “I don’t know about y’all,” he said, “but unless someone has an idea on how to find the entry to your spirit world, I’m gonna bow outta this here rodeo and hang up my spurs for the day.”

  “Oh, please, not yet,” Stacy pleaded, facing Ryan with her hands together in a praying position. “There has to be a way in. Just stay with us a litt
le longer.”

  Ryan grunted to who his disapproval, but decided not to give up on his friends just yet.

  Lisa floated up beside Stacy. “It’s too bad your dad didn’t show you something of the spirit world,” she said.

  “Why?” Stacy asked. “How would that help us?”

  “Because,” Lisa replied, “if he had taken you somewhere, you could focus your thoughts on that place and project us there.”

  “Wait a minute!” Ryan said, stopping midflight. “Are you sure that’s all it takes?”

  The rest of the kids converged on Ryan, their vapory, translucent bodies hovering freely in the darkness of space.

  “Yeah,” Lisa said. “All I had to do was concentrate on a place that I had been to before, with the desire to return, and all of the sudden I was there.”

  “If that’s the case, then I might be able to get us in.” Ryan paused a moment, trying to figure out how to do this as a group. A second later, the solution came to him. “Okay,” he said. “Everybody hold hands.”

  Lisa, William and Stacy all complied with Ryan’s request, and a moment later, the four young space travelers looked like a string of misty, translucent fishing bobbers floating on an invisible ocean.

  “Okay, hold on tight.” Ryan closed his eyes. I sure hope there ain’t no pirates around when we get there, he thought. Then, visualizing to the best of his memory the area in which he’d encountered Captain Blood, he desired himself there once again.

  Suddenly, POOF!

  Just as Lisa had described it—the four children instantly disappeared.

  The Dark Realm

  In the time it took to blink, the young celestial adventurers found themselves transprojected to another dimension: this one, dank and dreary.