by Sean Platt
The wolf’s eyes — which Edward was surprised to realize he’d started to think of as soft — grew cold and hard. “But the kids? They didn’t care about all the hard work Delores put into her home or baking. They didn’t bother to talk to her or to be nice. Because Delores? She was a great lady. If Goldie and Greta and Hans had just asked, she would have given them all the candy they wanted. Because that’s why she made it, you understand: to share. She used to say, ‘Baking is love, and love is nothing till shared.’ But the kids never even tried! To them, she was the wicked witch — wicked, apparently, because she had that big hat and didn’t conform to their perception of beauty. Delores wasn’t exactly main-stage pretty. She had horrible skin, with a tinge from living here without a lot of light, and couldn’t ever free her face from a few of her more unfortunate warts. The kids, they decided it was better — justified, mayhap — to steal from the witch.” Henry’s lip curled, showing those big, white fangs. “So they came here, over and over and over, and yanked chunks from her walls. Stole the chocolate drops above her door. Walked off once with an entire mailbox. She was constantly doing repairs. We encouraged her to contact the authorities, but no one would listen to the likes of us.”
“They don’t like you?” said Edward.
“I wish it were that simple,” the wolf said. “They don’t understand us. It’s like we’re not even speaking the same language.” He pointed to the giant’s house. “Paul there, his beanstalk’s other end is in town. Don’t ask; it’s a magic arrangement I don’t understand. But for the longest time, he’s had problems with people climbing the stalk, going into his house, and taking his gold. Just taking it! But when he went to the sheriff, they said, ‘Well, you must have stolen it to begin with.’ Just like that! They didn’t even investigate. Because if a giant has wealth, he must have stolen it, right?” Henry shook his head. “Complaining about the children did no good. Believe me; I’ve tried, with the tarts. And they just say, ‘Oh, I’m sure a big, bad wolf like you can solve a tiff with a little girl.’ But it’s not like that. They’re allowed to do whatever they want.
“Anyway, a week ago, the kids came back while Delores was out. Just Hans and Greta, whose father … well, I won’t tell you what I’ve heard about that sack of garbage.” Henry shook his head. “But the thing is, they’re greedy little kids, but stupid, too. Goldie is their ringleader, and without her along to mastermind, these two little idiots just gorged and gorged, with no thought to moderation or knowing when enough was enough. We think they were in Delores’s house alone for two or three hours before she finally came home. That was enough time for them to half destroy everything she had built. They ate most of her furniture. They used their fat little hands to grub sugar coating from most of the walls. They ate a clock — a clock! — that Delores had painstakingly created from tiny pieces of spun sugar. They must have gorged until they were sick a few times, because they seemed to have thrown up all over the place too. But did that stop them? No, they kept on eating, and eating. Eating like locusts. Delores came home to find her house in shambles.”
Edward gasped. The giant reappeared in the window. Looking at him now, the unicorn realized that he didn’t look menacing. He just looked large.
“Exactly,” Henry continued. “Delores was with a friend, but the kids didn’t care that there were two adults to face off against them. The girls started yelling, but Hans and Greta just laughed, and threw up some more, and ate some more. Then, from what Gloria says, Delores just started throwing things at the kids — but because everything in the house was edible, the kids just caught what she threw and ate it, laughing, like it was all one hilarious game. I guess it went bad when Delores threw open the door of her enormous oven and said, ‘You little brats! I’m going to cook you to repair my walls!’ It was the stupidest thing to say — totally Delores — but the kids somehow (this is their story, anyway) thought it was a real threat. They tackled her and shoved her into the oven, which they then closed and wedged shut. Gloria ran forward, tripped over something, and didn’t wake up until after … after … ”
Edward realized with shock that the Big Bad Wolf was going to cry. He turned, to give the wolf privacy to compose himself. Henry did, and returned to the conversation with a brisk, “Well.” His one word said that what had happened had happened, and that he’d made his peace, though clearly he hadn’t.
“And the authorities?” said Edward.
Henry shrugged. “Wicked witch who lives in the spooky forest threatens to cook charming local children. Who could blame them for defending themselves?”
CHAPTER 18
THE FUNERAL
Edward didn’t have the heart to ask Henry if he knew how to leave the Dark Forest, or the heart to ask anyone else in any of the other houses. The dark neighborhood no longer seemed as ominous as it had, but Edward still felt that he had to keep moving. The strange cat’s warning still rang in his ears, and this was another reality he wanted to be careful not to vanish into — not because it was evil or dark, but because it was besieged and sad.
He’d misjudged the dark. He’d felt threatened on arrival — including by women in dark, pointed hats — when in reality the neighborhood was probably more afraid of him. They had their ways and kept to themselves, and here came another denizen of the white. Who knew what they might have feared? Unicorns who could spin magic (they didn’t know that he couldn’t) were incredibly powerful. For all the villagers knew, mayhap Edward had been sent to clear the Dark Forest’s blight. Mayhap some powerful authority had sent him in to eliminate them all, in the name of everything good and clean.
Edward was particularly troubled by how the wolf had seen him immediately, and how subsequent villagers — all of whom regarded him with looks of suspicion — had stared into his core. Earlier, he’d felt invisible. Had the first creatures he’d passed since leaving the cat been indifferent? Or had they actually not been able to see, feel, or hear him? Edward wasn’t sure. But he was present now, and somehow that seemed ominous. He had to keep moving. This wasn’t his place. He had to reach Mead. He was becoming increasingly certain that whatever had happened in what the cat had called a “cataclysm” — what he’d said had made the world “soft” — was temporary. The cat had suggested that things between the worlds would heal in time. Edward had no idea how long that might take but was pretty sure what would happen if he didn’t find Mead before then. He didn’t want to be in the wrong place when barriers began snapping back into place.
He cut through the village, finding it larger than expected. He saw creatures similar to ghryst and other dark Mead specters in houses that appeared to be made of smoke, but instead of flinching back, the unicorn regarded them with interest. There was, upon a massive, mountainous hill overlooking the village, an enormous black tree with knobby branches that appeared to have been twisted into knots. The tree had bearing; it was like a supreme being looking down as both protector and overlord. There was a huge river around its base, seeming to start at the tree itself. Even across the distance, Edward’s unicorn eyes could see that the river’s level had diminished. There was a high-water line well above the river’s current level as if it once flowed in a mighty torrent before its flow had slowed.
It took Edward hours to traverse the village, and at times he was certain he’d walked in circles. He saw the same houses again and again, but each time he did, the unicorn was reasonably sure that there were different houses to the sides, or that the trees and rocky outcroppings had somehow changed. Every time he thought he saw something similar, Edward would look back and wonder if he should retrace his steps. But every time, he convinced himself that even though a house looked uniquely familiar, those around it looked equally unrecognizable. He kept walking, pushing through the fog of a dreary nightmare, seeing the same specters over and over.
Edward started to worry. The unicorn was putting one hoof in front of the other, as the cat had instructed, and wasn’t stopping to immerse himself into the village. But had he already
gone too far? Had the time he’d spent talking to the wolf — the time, he realized, that he’d taken to understand where he was and how he might be able to fit in if needed — cost him his independent existence? Should he have remained cold and indifferent, proving himself (to what or whom, he couldn’t imagine) different from this place? Had the world begun to solidify? The tree on the mountain was seldom out of sight, and Edward found his eyes repeatedly returning to the small river at its base. The tree reminded him of the one in Grammy and Grappy’s story. The river made him think of Mead’s floodwaters. Had something been breached between light and dark, as in Mead? If so, was that breach healing, as evidenced by the river’s thinning flow?
The Dark Forest stretched on and on and on. Dark roads. Familiar houses. Recurring trees. Yet Edward’s sense of direction was fairly good, and the unicorn had been watching what seemed to be an ever-present full moon. It hadn’t changed positions relative to his forward-marching nose. So why was the forest not ending, and why was Edward sure he was marching past the same places on repeat?
He arrived at a cemetery. He’d seen one very much like it several times before, always on the road’s left, with the three forward-canted tombstones at the front and the one split down the middle beside them. This time, the cemetery was different. It was full of people.
People included all forms of creatures, all of whom were focused on a slim black coffin made of what appeared to be burned wood. The thing was dull and unimpressive, hanging in the group’s middle like a hole in the night. It stood beside but not above a large, rough-hewn hole in the ground with sides that were smooth and scooped rather than straight and cut. The grave looked like a crater — plenty deep but inexpertly dug and entirely too wide at the top. As Edward walked forward, drawing no attention, he noticed that what he’d taken to be a monument at the group’s rear was actually the giant, Paul. His head was obscured by a large tree. Looking up at the giant’s hands, which dangled between bent knees as he sat on the cemetery ground, Edward saw that his fingers and palms were covered with dirt.
At the head of the group around the grave was a very tall scarecrow with the head of a pumpkin. The pumpkin was carved with a horrible face, all angles and sharp teeth. The carved grin stretched as high as the triangular eyes and held no humor. The scarecrow man was stuffed into a ratty black formal human suit. Tufts of straw protruded from its cuffs at the ankles and wrists. Edward listened for a few minutes before walking forward — long enough to understand that the scarecrow was leading the dark service and that the service, as suspected, was for Henry’s friend Delores.
Edward stood where he was, five or ten paces back from the gathering — the gathering, which, he realized, had an opening at its back where he could slot into perfectly as if it had been left specifically for him. He turned his head and glanced at the road then back at the funeral. The unicorn somehow felt it would be right to attend but didn’t want to. Doing so might make him more a part of this dark world, and he had to get home.
He looked again at the road and was suddenly sure he could walk that road forever and never leave the forest. It had him already. He could only leave if he fought. And to fight, he needed help.
Edward walked forward. Henry the wolf was to his right, and as Edward stepped into place, the wolf turned toward him and nodded as if to thank him for coming. To his left was a man in a green hat with a very long brim. His clothes were multicolored, which seemed strange attire for a funeral. Although this was the unicorn’s first human funeral (assuming Delores was human), he had to admit he didn’t know the standard etiquette. The man had a large nose, deeply pitted olive skin, and grave brown eyes peering out from beneath his long hat. As Edward settled, the man gave him one long, unabashed look — the appraising eyes of someone who doesn’t worry about the impression he might be giving because no one questioned his right to do as he pleased.
“We do not have to understand what happened to our friend Delores,” said the preacher pumpkin, standing across the large, untidy grave. “We do not have to make peace with it. It is not our place to make peace. In the eyes of those who did this, it is our place to make discord. Neither is correct. They are not bad to have done this, and we are not bad to have inspired their hatred. We are not the dark. They are not the light. We are who we are. And Delores was who she was. To the children of the village across the path, she was a witch. To us, she was merely a woman. To the children, she was a target and victim. To us, she was a friend. None of that matters. When a life ends, the magic that animated that life returns to that place whence it came, and those impressions no longer matter. All that matters is legacy. What was Delores to all of you? What can you learn from her life? And how will the world be different for her having been here? None of us knows. Each of us is like a ripple in a pond. Deep in the downstream of time it may — or may not — be apparent how and why we mattered. But each of us does matter — and each of us here, on this side of the path, matters just as those on the other side.”
The scarecrow man sighed, apparently bringing breath into lungs made of straw and cornhusks. From the corner of Edward’s side-facing eye, he saw the man with the hat and pitted skin cast him with another appraising look.
“We do not know why we are here,” said the scarecrow. “We do not know if it is by provenance or a trick of luck. There are some who say we are brought here by the intention of others — of those beyond our knowledge who assembled us here for reasons they know and do not share. There are those who say that when an existence here ends, it is merely a transition.” He pointed at the casket, and Edward saw that his hand was composed of twisted sticks, all of them black. His pointer was a knotted twig with a sheered end.
“We will miss Delores but must understand that we cannot understand what this husk of body in a wooden box actually is. Is it evidence that the energy that animated her has moved on? Or does it simply mean an end? We know that energy does not go away. It merely moves to other places. So where did Delores’s go? To the air? To the ground? Did it fragment? Or is it possible that it remains whole? None of us can know. We know only that it’s gone, but where it’s gone depends on what we truly are while here. Are we clusters of magic that dissipate back into larger magic once done? Or if we’re here by the intention of our creators, do we return to them? What happens when a dream is no longer dreamed?”
Several of the dark figures sniffled around the grave. The man to Edward’s side was still glancing over. Edward wanted to tell him to mind his own business and be more respectful. The thought bothered him, just as the preacher’s oratory was bothering him. What was this place? Was it really possible that the more respect and attention Edward gave to the world’s proceedings, the more he became part of it? Was he giving his energy permission to remain? It was a dangerous question, if everything borrowed magic from the Wellspring, as Grappy had said. If energy’s borrowed, why would that energy care what arbitrary cluster it formed, and in which place?
Unbidden and unwanted, one of the cat’s questions flitted into Edward’s mind: Do you believe you are real?
The preacher concluded the service, pausing at the end, stepping toward the burned black coffin and running his hand of sticks across the top. The other mourners did the same, forming a line by the coffin, each walking by and dragging a single hand across the top. Edward couldn’t do that when it was his turn, so he nudged it with his nose as he’d seen several other creatures and animals do. The coffin was thick with soot and left a temporary mark on his nose. As the crowd dispersed, he noticed they all had black soot on their fingers and that all were, as they walked away, using identical white swatches to wipe themselves clean. As they walked through the cemetery gate, they tossed the cloths into a roaring barrel of fire.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” said a deep, gravely voice.
Edward turned. He saw the man with the pitted skin and green hat standing beside him. He was wiping soot from his fingers, but whereas the others did so reverently, the man with the hat did
so as if cleaning after an unpleasant task. He finished then pushed his scrap of cloth into a short man’s hand as he passed. The short man looked up, saw who’d given it to him, put the other man’s cloth together with his own, and proceeded toward the burning barrel to deposit them both.
“Who are you?” said Edward, annoyed.
“A man who gets things places,” he said, brushing his hands on his multicolored pants and leaving smudges of sacred soot. “Usually things that shouldn’t be where they are. Things others wish were gone.”
Edward turned so he was facing the strange man, looking at him sidelong with his equine eyes. He’d already prepared for the man addressing him; the way he’d assessed the unicorn throughout the funeral made it seem like he would. The glances were annoying and intrusive. The way the man hadn’t paid attention to the service was disrespectful and insulting. Edward had already decided he didn’t like the man at all. And what’s more, the unicorn was tired of feeling at the effect of other things. He’d boarded the ark without question, mainly because Noah had asked him to. A strange prophetic cat had told him about the world as if Edward were a simpleton who knew nothing rather than a representative of a progenitor race. He’d been shoved from place to place by circumstance, understanding nothing and only wanting to get home. But he was through feeling like a weak, frightened colt. He had braved multiple worlds and walked through the darkest of dark without harm. He’d be dagged if some idiot in a pointy hat could intimidate him.