The Slippery Map

by N. E. Bode

  Hopps bellowed and fell to his knees.

  Eshma sighed and shrugged. “Oh, well. Sometimes healing is more painful than wounding,” she explained.

  Oyster watched the broken skin fold together and seal over with a new pinkish shine. The rip in Hopps’s uniform knitted itself up; and in moments it was as if the Goggle had never bitten Hopps, as if the Dragon hadn’t swiped at him. Hopps was panting, but the pain was gone. He touched his arm.

  “Miraculous!” he said.

  “Yes, yes, quite,” Eshma said, unimpressed. “How’s it coming, Ippy? Are you concentrating, dear?”

  “I’m trying!” Ippy said.

  “Draw up your strength, Ippy,” Eshma said. “You can do this.”

  Ippy had her arms stretched, her head bowed. She was kneeling before the Dragon’s ribs. She murmured under her breath. And then her hair began to rise. The Dragon’s first breath, a deep inhale, was pulling her hair toward its wide nostrils. Ippy looked up at the Dragon’s face, astonished.

  “Good, good!” Eshma encouraged. “Excellent, dear!”

  Hopps and Oyster shrank away from the Dragon. Leatherbelly’s tail disappeared between his legs. The one eye of the Dragon that Oyster could see flipped open. It raised its heavy head. Ippy jumped up and ran to Oyster at the edge of the clearing.

  But Eshma walked up to the Dragon and smiled. She walked over to a log, and, with little effort, she heaved the log up. She tapped the log on the ground. “Here, fella! Here, boy!”

  The Dragon’s tail pounded the ground.

  And then Eshma hoisted up the log and threw it across the clearing.

  The Dragon bounced up and bounded after it.

  Eshma brushed her hands on her skirt. “I’d have one as a pet, but I hear they’re impossible to house-train.”

  Hopps stepped forward. He gaped at the Dragon gnawing on the log and at Ippy, who was staring at her hands, amazed at what they’d done. He was holding his own arm, now healed. He spoke in a rattled voice—a little dry, shaken voice. “It was you, really, who saved us from the Dragon in the first place, wasn’t it?”

  Eshma let out a little laugh, then just smiled and lowered her chin. “Did you think it was the fella who screamed at the top of his lungs?”

  Hopps shook his head. “No, no, ’course not.” But Oyster knew that Hopps had thought the same thing that he had: Ringet had killed the Dragon with a scream.

  “Don’t tell the fella, now,” Eshma said. “He needed the boost, didn’t he?”

  “He did,” Hopps said. “He sure did.”

  “He’s a changed man for it!” Eshma added.

  Oyster was awed by Eshma Weegrit. “How did you do it?” he asked.

  “Do what?” Eshma asked.

  “Well, all of it!” Oyster asked.

  “It’s complicated,” Ippy said. “It takes years of study.”

  “And in some ways, it isn’t complicated at all,” Eshma said. “What it comes down to is simple imagination.”

  “I’m not very good at that,” Oyster said.

  “Maybe you weren’t good at that once upon a time, but I’m not worried about your imagination, Oyster. Not one bit.”

  Me neither, Ippy’s heart said to Oyster.

  This made Oyster feel a bit better. He knew there were things that had to have come from him. He thought of the nunlike snores of the Breathing River; and Mrs. Fishback, alive in a strange way in the field of flowers; and Dr. Fromler’s smile on Vince Vance’s face; and the red Dragon. But this was his parents’ World, wasn’t it? “Did my parents create you?” he asked Eshma.

  Eshma winked. “They marked a small X in a spot, here in the forest, and they put a single word: guru. And then I made myself!”

  Oyster thought of his spindly little map in Ringet’s oversized soup can, and then his mind just started running. He thought of the inside of the house: his parents in the kitchen making dinner together, and how he’d be able to hear his parents laughing in the background while he’d be in his bedroom, complete with a train set on the floor and a set of bunk beds, playing with his friend from the Dragon Palace, and how they would call him down for dinner when the time came…and what would that be like?

  Eshma now trudged into the woods a bit. “Let’s find the X. Come along!”

  They followed behind her quickly. She was looking at the ground like she’d lost something.

  “Do you see it, Ippy?” Eshma asked.

  “Not yet,” Ippy said.

  “What are we looking for?” Oyster asked.

  But Eshma didn’t need to answer. “Aha!” she cried out. She picked up what looked like a golden stone from the ground, but it wasn’t a golden stone at all. It was Eshma Weegrit’s doorknob; and when she lifted it, a door swung wide, a door built into the ground, a door covered with moss and rocks and sticks.

  CHAPTER 20

  ESHMA WEEGRIT’S KEYS

  When the door on the ground opened, a glowing light poured forth. Eshma paid no attention to it. She simply walked down a set of narrow steps. “Welcome,” she said. “I have some things you’ll need.”

  Hopps and Ippy went down first. Oyster and Leatherbelly followed. It was so bright inside that Oyster had to squint. The kitchen was small and dotted with brilliant lights. Oyster couldn’t tell what these lights were. Some were roving overhead. Others were parked on counters and shelves. Others still were scurrying around on the floorboards. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands.

  Oyster was about to ask what they were, but Hopps blurted the answer. “Wingers!” he cried out. Oyster looked over at his well-lit face. His eyes were filled with tears. A few spilled onto his cheeks. “How many?” he said. “How many have you saved?”

  “Didn’t you know?” Ippy said.

  “I thought they were all dead!” Hopps cried.

  “Oh, no,” Eshma said, walking through the bright kitchen, turning down a long, narrow hall. “I’ve saved a small nation. They’re ready to rebuild.”

  Leatherbelly was confused by the Wingers, the small Perths with glowing chests. They flitted around his head and he pawed at them.

  “Come on, Leatherbelly,” Oyster said.

  They were all careening as quickly as possible, following Eshma through a maze of halls. The Wingers got more plentiful, and the house grew brighter.

  A mosquito-singing voice spoke from the floor. “Hopps? Is it you?” the voice whined, high-pitched. A Winger zipped up to Hopps’s face and stopped abruptly.

  “Ezbit?” Hopps said. “Ezbit? You’re alive!” Hopps held out his hand, and Ezbit landed on it. Oyster’s eyes were fixed on the Winger. His wings calmed and his chest went dim.

  “Yes. I barely survived. My group took off for the valley. Eshma picked us up there and brought us to safety.”

  “Well, it’s good to see you, my friend. Very good.”

  “Keep up!” Ippy said.

  Hopps started walking again. Oyster and Leatherbelly did, too. Ezbit flitted up from his hand. “Are you going to defeat Dark Mouth with the boy?” he asked.

  “Is that what’s being said?”

  Ezbit nodded. “That’s the boy, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Hopps said.

  “Good luck,” Ezbit said.

  “I’m glad you’re alive,” Hopps said.

  “I’m ready to go home,” Ezbit said. “We all are.” There was a chirruping chorus of Wingers. “We’re cheering you all on!” Ezbit said. He put his finger to his nose and looked at Oyster, who returned the gesture. “The boy!” Ezbit said. “At long last!”

  Oyster wasn’t sure what to make of this. He didn’t feel like he’d done anything to help so far. He wanted to confess that he’d lost the Slippery Map. He wanted to be a hero, of course, but he wasn’t comfortable with so many people depending on him.

  “The boy!” the Winger cheered, his tiny wings beating fiercely in the air. “The boy!”

  “Here we are,” Eshma said, turning into the last room at the end of the hall. “The key roo
m!”

  The key room was properly named. It was filled with keys of all shapes and sizes. When Eshma opened the door, it created a little breeze that stirred the hanging keys, rows of them, and they all chimed noisily. The room smelled dank and metallic.

  “You have keys?” Hopps asked. “To what?” He was inspecting keys, one after the other, turning them and looking at their numbers.

  “She has keys to everything!” Ippy said. “I told you she would help us.”

  “Keys to the jail cells. The specific key to Oyster’s parents’ joint cell. The key to Dark Mouth’s inner compound that leads to the tower,” Eshma said breezily. “Keys, keys, keys.”

  Hopps stopped. “Wait just a minute. You could have gotten into Dark Mouth’s inner compound? How many times over could you have killed him?”

  “I’m a guru.” Eshma looked at Hopps. Her chin tucked to her chest, she eyed him sternly. “I’ve taken vows to give aid to the sickly. Dark Mouth, poor in health, is my patient. I’m not a murderer.”

  Oyster glanced around the room. Keys hung from poles striping the ceiling, lit by darting Wingers. Boxes filled with keys sat on the floor. The walls all had built-in drawers and cabinets. Those that were open showed only more keys. They were all numbered and in some kind of order, Oyster could tell. Somewhere among all of the keys was the key that could free his parents. “Do you know my parents?” Oyster asked. “Have you seen them? Are they okay?”

  “Your mother has headaches sometimes. Your father has to watch his blood pressure. Other than that they’re fit,” Eshma said.

  “And, and”—he turned back to Eshma—“couldn’t you have freed them? If you have the key…”

  Ippy looked at Oyster. “Maybe they don’t want to be freed. Not like that. Not with a trick of a key. My parents died in the Foul Revolution. If your parents snuck out of jail and the Perths didn’t rise up for themselves with their own muscle, then it would be like my parents died for nothing.”

  Oyster felt a surge of panic. Didn’t his parents want, more than anything, to be with him? He was confused. Hopps was too.

  “What are you talking about?” Hopps shouted. “You don’t know what you’re saying. If they could get free, they would. They’d help us! They’d make us rise up!”

  Eshma said, “The uprising must come from the Perths themselves. They understand that. If it doesn’t come from within, if they don’t rise up and convince themselves of their own strength, then they’ll just fall again. If not beaten down by Dark Mouth, then by someone else.”

  Oyster let his eyes wander around the room: keys, Wingers, shuffling lights, glinting metal teeth. He felt dizzy. “But how could they not want to be free? Don’t they want to raise me?”

  “They are raising you, Oyster. They’re raising you to be a force, someone who can live by his wits and survive,” Eshma said. “Someone who will one day be able to lead. Don’t you see that?”

  Oyster shook his head. “No,” he said. “That’s not right. It’s not fair.” He thought of Sister Mary Many Pockets, and how she cared for him. He thought of her face beaming at him, even when he was in a bit of trouble, even when he’d come flying out of the broom closet and his moth collection, led by his pet bird, flew through the kitchen, even when all of the nuns were disgusted by him and wanted their peace, even when the Vicious Goggles were taking her away to be fed to Blood-Beaked Vultures. “No,” Oyster said again.

  “Well,” Hopps said, “I’ll take the keys: to Dark Mouth’s inner compound, all of the jail cells. Ringet said he could get the Perths to rise up. He might be telling the truth. It’s now or never—for me, anyway. The Goggles by now already know I’m gone. They’ll be after me.” He patted Oyster on the back. “It’s now or never for you, too, Oyster. Don’t you see it?”

  Oyster nodded.

  Eshma walked to a cabinet. She opened it with a tiny key from her pocket, then pulled open the bottom drawer. There was a metal box inside, padlocked. She twisted the lock through a combination—a long, complicated combination—then popped it open. Inside was a ring of keys, at least a hundred. She took a cloth sack sitting on top of the cabinet and filled it with a ring of narrow keys on a brass stick. “Start here,” she said. “At cell one, first key after the stick. Oyster’s parents are in cell forty-two.”

  “Forty-two,” Oyster repeated.

  She put the ring in the sack. “And this is the key to Dark Mouth’s inner compound.” From inside the metal box she pulled an enormous, ornate key that was long and gold and jagged. When she dropped it into the sack, it clanked against the smaller set. She handed the sack to Oyster.

  “You’re not coming?” Oyster asked Eshma.

  “Ippy and I have come as far as we should,” she said. “You are on your own now.”

  “Why?” Oyster said. “Ippy?”

  “I’m going back to prepare the Doggers,” Ippy said.

  “I’ll be here preparing the Wingers,” Eshma said. “Everyone will be necessary in the end.”

  Oyster felt sick and weak. He swung the bag over his shoulder.

  “The prisons are within the mountains,” Eshma said. “You’ll find air holes, part of a system of vents, while you climb. Dark Mouth’s inner compound can be reached by a wide door at the base of the tower. You’ll be fine.”

  Oyster wasn’t so sure. The sack was already weighing him down.

  Hopps sighed. “Eshma,” he said, “I have a friend with a locked leg. The one who thought he’d killed the Dragon by screaming.”

  “And I know someone who has to wear leg braces, but he’s far away,” Oyster added. “Could you cure them?”

  She nodded. “Perhaps. I’ll try.”

  Oyster looked at Ippy. “Will we see each other again?” he asked.

  “We will,” she said. “And be careful, Oyster.”

  “You too,” he said.

  “It’s a place of death and darkness,” Eshma added. “Just follow the Torch.”

  CHAPTER 20½

  A BRIEF INTERRUPTION…

  Now, if you look closely at the Slippery Map—as Vince Vance was at the very moment that Hopps, Oyster, and Leatherbelly were heading out of Eshma Weegrit’s underground home—you will notice that wherever someone has made a cut to create a portal through the Slippery Map, there is a dimple left behind. A small scar, one might say. And so, looking at the Map pinned to a corkboard, Vince Vance was eyeing each of these little dimple-scars quite closely. He had a handful of pushpins, and one by one, he stuck them into the dimples, hoping that they would lead him to the other side.

  “Hollywood,” he said. “Where is Hollywood? Hollywood? Is this it? Is this?”

  A certain Hula Hoop became dark and windy again—as did a tire swing, a tunnel slide at a public pool (still closed to the public), a soccer goal, and the innards of a sofa. A gust escaped from Alvin Peterly’s refrigerator box—which had become a neighborhood attraction that Alvin charged people one dollar each to peek into. But no one noticed. It was just a small pinprick of a portal—and, frankly, folks had lost interest in Alvin Peterly’s refrigerator box and so it had been abandoned in his dusty garage.

  One would think that Mrs. Fishback and Dr. Fromler would have noticed the pinprick of wind from the spitting sink—as they’d professed to be so dedicated to the return of Leatherbelly and devoted to teeth everywhere. They were actually in the office, eating candies together in exam room number one. But they were goo-y with each other—as is the case with people who’ve fallen in love—and so they didn’t even notice the pinprick of windy gusts puffing up from the spitting sink.

  In the nunnery, however, the nuns were carefully keeping an eye on the organ. They were praying day and night as hard as they could for some sort of sign. Sister Hilda Prone to Asthma was in charge of checking the broom closet. She’d set up a small kneeler there so she could keep up her prayers. She was the one to notice the first bits of a breeze. She was hot. It was summer. And at first, the breeze made her feel contented, and then she realized th
at maybe it was the beginning of an Awful MTD, so she ran to the chapel. The other nuns were gathered around the organ, because Sister Elouise of the Occasional Cigarette had detected the motion as well. They wanted to follow Sister Mary Many Pockets. They wanted to help find Oyster, but they weren’t sure how to proceed.

  And there was another problem, which Mother Superior pointed out in a note that she passed around: They weren’t all together. Sister Margaret of the Long Sighs and Withering Glare was across the street at the Dragon Palace. They couldn’t leave her behind even if they did know how to get to Oyster, which they didn’t.

  As you know, the nuns never went outside the nunnery gates except for special circumstances, such as the doctor or an emergency, but they’d gotten accustomed to ordering takeout from the Dragon Palace across the street. This was an emergency, Mother Superior had noted. There was no time for anything but prayer! And so every day, they wrote down their orders, left them at the register, and came to pick them up midday for lunch and in the early evening for dinner.

  Sister Margaret of the Long Sighs and Withering Glare had already walked into the Dragon Palace, past the boy with the leg braces and the blue umbrella. She was squinting at the man behind the counter, who handed her a large, oil-stained bag of their take-out boxes when, all of a sudden, the boy with the blue umbrella started to shout.

  “Help!” he cried out. “Help me!”

  Sister Margaret of the Long Sighs and Withering Glare turned and ran for the boy. She was very sensitive now to the cries of children—she missed Oyster terribly. The boy’s umbrella was gusting violently, whipping around his head, lifting him off of his little chair. Sister Margaret of the Long Sighs and Withering Glare was the first there. Still holding tight to her take-out order with one arm, she grabbed the boy around the middle and fought to keep him tethered to the ground. The boy’s father and mother appeared behind her, shouting commands in Chinese. One can assume that they were saying something like, “Let go of the umbrella! Be careful!” and “Who is this woman in the long black dress and veil who always sighs and stares at us coldly every time she comes for her large pickup orders? And why is she trying to help?”