The Toy Peddler joined him. He lifted his eyes toward the canopy above them. The limbs of trees on opposite sides of the path struggled to touch, to block out the sun, to protect the underneath. The Toy Peddler relished the image of a protective covering. He shut his eyes to further cement the thought.
“What the—!” The Puppeteer suddenly exclaimed. He had slipped backward off the log and was lying half buried under a pile of fallen leaves.
“Are you okay?” The Toy Peddler opened his eyes and searched for his companion. He found a little wooden hand sticking up from the leafy blanket. He took hold and pulled. The hand was attached to nothing. “Oh! I’m sorry. Did I pull your hand off?”
“No,” the Puppeteer said from the path. “Something much worse has happened.”
The Toy Peddler turned and gazed in wonder at the brightly colored boy in front of him, and it was the Puppeteer that stared back, but a very different Puppeteer. “You’re—what are you?” the Toy Peddler asked, unable to contain his shock.
“I’m a freaking cartoon,” the Puppeteer responded, holding out his puffy hands encased in oversized white gloves.
“What’s a freaking cartoon?”
“Not a freaking—I’m just a cartoon.”
“Okay then, what’s a cartoon?”
“This,” the Puppeteer said, indicating his beige skin outlined with a deep black line. His clothes, similarly brightly colored and also with black outlines. “This is a cartoon. I’m animated.”
The Toy Peddler bit his upper lip and nodded slowly.
“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” The Puppeteer asked, and the Toy Peddler continued to bite his lip but began to shake his head from side to side. “It’s a form of storytelling, like drawings but made to appear in rapid succession so they seem to be moving. Do you understand that?”
“I think the better question is, how do you understand that?” The Toy Peddler stepped closer to the Puppeteer and gently touched his bright red shoulder. His face inadvertently screwed up into a slightly disgusted grimace before he regained control and corrected himself so as not to offend the Puppeteer.
“Hmmm?” The Puppeteer scratched his chin, which felt unnatural without the sounds of wood scraping on wood. He shifted and put his hand under his hat and scratched his head, stopping only when he realized that his hat could come off now. “I don’t know how I understand; I just do.”
“It’s like our core stories,” the Toy Peddler offered. “We know our cores because our cores are us. Your core has been altered.”
“My core.” The Puppeteer mentally searched his own understanding of self. Narratives of wood carving and crafting had filled his mind; he remembered that. He also remembered the loneliness, the darkness, the sweetness, and that one time when he was truly innocent. He remembered so much of his old core that was just…gone. Now, he was filled with colors too bright to be natural and swirling pictures, images that made no sense but felt so fun.
“Well, at least we know now what change you noticed, and you were right; it is a big one.”
“No,” the Puppeteer said thoughtfully. “I’m not the change. It was something else. Something bigger.”
“You have no idea,” a gruff voice attached to a gruffer man echoed under the canopy.
“Angler?” the Toy Peddler asked, stepping forward and opening his eyes wide.
“Aye, that’d be me,” the Angler responded and bowed low. His large hat released a pool of water that had been trapped in the brim. The water splashed on the leaves and filled the woods with the momentary sound of rain.
“Do you know what’s happening? Do you know who’s doing all of this?” the Puppeteer asked. His oversized eyes glinted unnaturally bright.
“Aye, that I do, and there’ll be no stopping him now,” the Angler turned and headed toward the little wooden shack nestled on the lake’s edge. The Toy Peddler followed while the Puppeteer tried in vain to walk without falling using his new feet, which were stuffed into gigantic white boots that were far too round to be practical.
Inside the shack was damp, musty. Every wooden surface, the tables, the chairs, the fireplace, was sticky with seawater. The Angler motioned for his guests to sit at the heavy rough-hewn table near the back wall, farthest from the fire.
“Just tell us what you know,” the Puppeteer said, gingerly placing a hand on the table and then looking at his palm to make sure his ink wasn’t running.
“You’ll see what I know soon enough.” The Angler set down two cups of tea and nodded for his guests to help themselves. He then sauntered to the window that looked out over the lake and sighed as the sunset grew brilliant for just an instant as the glowing orb sunk below the horizon.
“It’s nighttime,” the Angler pronounced.
“Yes.” The Puppeteer sneered. “That tends to happen when the sun sets.”
“You don’t remember the Gloaming.” A tinge of sadness worked its way through the Angler’s words.
“Sure I do,” the Puppeteer continued, sipping his tea and marveling at the tickling sensation of the hot liquid going down his throat instead of splashing on his wooden lower jaw. “It was just a minute ago. I might look ridiculous, but I still have my mind.”
“The Eternal Gloaming was my favorite part of Creativity.” The Angler sighed and moved away from the window. He cocked his head and shuffled to the side door that led to the dock. He tentatively brushed the tip of his index finger along the smooth metal top of the table he kept there to clean fish. “It’s not wood any longer.”
“Angler,” the Toy Peddler interrupted. “You’re experiencing changes. We’ve all been through them, but those changes have something to do with our quest for the First Story. Do you know where it is, who took it?”
“Metal is so much easier to clean.” The Angler placed his hand flat on the metal tabletop. “It’s cold, huh? But I bet it don’t stain.”
“He’s lost it.” The Puppeteer jumped off of his chair and headed for the front door. “I say we head back to the Inn. Maybe the others found someone who’s not a head case.”
The Toy Peddler held up a hand, motioning for the Puppeteer to wait. “You got a metal table but lost the Gloaming. Is that the deal you made?”
The Angler’s head snapped up. He stared out the window toward the sea. He could see nothing but a vast inky darkness. “You can’t stop him. The First Story is too powerful.”
“Stop who?” The Toy Peddler tiptoed closer to the metal table, straining to hear the Angler’s whispers.
“I need to think.” The Angler shot through the side door and was pushing the boat away from the dock before the Toy Peddler had time to blink twice.
“Dang, he can move for an old codger.” The Puppeteer hurried, as best he could with his new feet, to stand on the threshold of the side door with the Toy Peddler. They watched as the Angler’s boat quickly bobbed its way into the complete blackness of the world at night.
“What do you think he meant when he said the Eternal Gloaming?” The Toy Peddler asked as he closed the door against the night chill.
“He’s batty, crazy as they come.”
“But he’s not. He’s the embodiment of endings, one of the most powerful Aspects in all of Creation. His power is to—the Gloaming.”
“His power is to the Gloaming? Now you’re not making sense.”
“The Gloaming. The Eternal Gloaming.” The Toy Peddler stepped to the window and pointed out into the dark. “It was perpetual, never changing, never giving way completely to darkness. Perfectly balanced. Don’t you see?”
“See what?” The Puppeteer shuffled to the window and hauled himself onto the metal table. He looked out and saw the dark, nothing more. “I don’t understand. What are you—?”
A wind, an impossible wind, swept through the cabin. The air rushed in one unforgiving burst. Every door, every window flew open in a violent wave that crested and exploded outward. The walls shook, the floorboards heaved, and the roof lifted up and slammed
back down again. The wind dissipated as quickly as it began, and the Puppeteer picked himself up off the floor. The structure around him creaked and moaned.
“Maybe we should get out of…” The Puppeteer stood on shaky legs, his oversized feet anchoring in place, keeping him from pitching over. He listed to the left and stumbled forward over debris and rubble. The walls bowed inward and threatened to cave. He made his way outside. “I shouldn’t talk to myself,” he whispered. “People might think I’m insane.”
The night was breaking. A new day was dawning. He sat on the pier and watched the waves become more distinct, more solid in the light of day. He wished he had a friend to share this sunrise, but loneliness was his lot in life.
He rose and whistled, trying to lift his lonely spirit, as he skipped, for the same reason, toward the retreating forest. He knew he had to hurry. The City would be coming soon, and he needed to walk in the Woods just one more time before night fell again.
Chapter 42
Matt jerked himself awake, nearly falling out of his chair. He reached out instinctively and nearly grabbed one of the wires attached to John. In horror, he lifted his hand above his head and stared wide-eyed at the empty hospital room. The lights had been dimmed, the shades drawn, and the door closed. It was eerily quiet.
“What…?” He rubbed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. He had been reciting stories. John had been listening—he knew he was listening—and the pressure was slackening. It was. He could tell, and then he must have fallen asleep.
He sighed and rubbed his aching neck. Hospital chairs were not designed for sleeping, and upright was not the best position either. He tried to stretch out his stiff muscles, and he looked at the clock. It was gone.
He stood, alarmed, and scanned the floor. There was no clock. He rushed to the window and flung back the curtains, lifting the blinds. Light flooded the room but did not reveal the clock. He hurried from the room.
“The clock!” he shouted at the first person he met, a short, portly man in an orderly uniform.
“What?” The man’s eyes were large, startled.
“There was a clock in that room.” Matt twisted his body to point behind him. “It was on the wall. It had a black mark on…”
As Matt talked, the man reached underneath the cart he was pushing and produced the clock.
“This?” he asked. “I thought it was the one from the nurses’ station. I was returning it.”
“It is the one from the nurses’ station.” Matt took the clock and examined it. The time didn’t appear to have been changed, although since he had fallen asleep, there was no way to know for sure, and the tick mark he had made was still there. “They can have it back in twelve hours. Not before.”
Matt carried the clock back into the room and set it carefully on the bedside table beside John’s head. He took another breath, settled down into the chair, and began to speak. The gentle tick of the clock was much louder this close to him, much more pronounced.
Chapter 43
A Growl and a Web
The Chittering Underground emerged from her burrow and hurriedly spun a thick web over the entrance. As she worked, most of her eyes focused on the task at hand, but one turned to the sky. It was dark, darker than she had ever known it to be, as dark as the First Night when Creativity had been created. That was another time, she told herself, too far distant to be returning, but the sky was so very dark.
“They are not succeeding.” The Growl in the Night slinked from between the trees, lifting himself onto his hind legs, creating an imposing shadow amid many other imposing shadows.
“We must give them time.” The Chittering Underground continued her work, all of her eyes on her webbing.
“Take a look at the sky!” The Growl in the Night’s long, sinewy foreleg stretched upward; a long, sharp, ominous claw jutted from the end and stabbed at the blackness above them. “The Eternal Gloaming has failed. The world is plunged into darkness, and you are here, just spinning a web!”
The Chittering Underground paused and lifted all of her eyes. The blackness was complete, and as far as she could tell, the Growl in the Night was correct. The darkness had returned. The time before Creativity was reborn. There was no telling who—or what—would survive the upheaval. Her mind drifted back to the time before the Eternal Gloaming, and she shuddered.
Chapter 44
In the Dark
It wriggled. Its limbs, long, thin, and impossibly slimy, entwined each other in a grotesque dance as its body, a pulpy bump of flesh, convulsed in syncopated rhythm.
The beat sounded through the darkness, steady and strong, pulsating with an unconvincing mimicry of life. It was not alive, this thing in the dark, but it so very much wanted to live. The thought of life, of an existence beyond the darkness, sent another wriggle through its limbs, another pulse of evenly spaced sound.
The darkness grew silent as the thing grew tired of wriggling and pulsing. The silence filled the space more effectively than anything solid, alive could hope to achieve. The silence hurt.
The desire to wriggle returned, if for no other reason than to stave off the biting silence, but the Thing in the dark resisted the urge. Wriggling and pulsing had accomplished nothing. It was time for…something. The word was difficult to birth, but the effort was needed. It was time for…something. The word stuck in the pulpy flesh. It was time for…something…NEW! The Thing in the Dark stretched all its limbs in one direction, and that direction became up. But there were not enough limbs to fill the darkness. The Thing in the Dark willed more limbs into existence until they stretched upward, ever upward, in every direction and every empty space.
Then it smoothed its bumpy flesh as best it could, and its body became ground. Its flesh became hills and mountains and vales. Its limbs, now too numerous to count, sloughed off the slime and became, firm, steady, wooden. The slime congealed, flowed, gathered into streams and lakes and oceans. But there was still the darkness, the silence.
The Thing in the Dark split itself, the part of itself that was not pulpy body or slimy limbs, and a new thing emerged. Then another thing came into being. The two new things waited in the dark for something they could not name. The Thing in the Dark no longer felt alone, and it no longer wanted to be what it had been.
The Thing in the Dark mustered all of its strength, all of its remaining being, into one powerful, all-encompassing, all-consuming, ever-present, ever-changing idea. The idea grew brighter and illuminated what remained of the empty darkness until the Eternal Night became something less—and so much more—than darkness. Then the Thing in the Dark released its hold, and an explosion, so full of light, energy, and life, obliterated what remained of the silence.
The Gloaming Woods nestled into a calm, comforting Eternal Gloaming. The darkness retreated, the biting silence was no more, the world was new, and into this world, the two new things struggled to find their place.
“Maybe we should go back to darkness,” the first new thing said. “We knew our place there.”
“We had no place there,” the other thing answered. “We were nothing there. Here, we are something.”
“But what is that something that we are?”
There was no easy answer; however, the silence of no answer did not bite. It just simply was quiet. The two things moved together through the Gloaming Woods. They marveled at the beauty of the trees and the serenity of the soft light from above. They made their way to the base of the majestic mountains and gazed in wonder at the monumental enormity of the cliffs, and as they stared, they noticed a black dot in the craggy gray of the stones.
“What is that?” The first thing asked.
“A new idea.” The second thing pointed at the dot, the cave, and noticed its own arm for the first time.
“I’m not sure I like it.” The first thing turned away from the cliffs and crouched down on all four of its newly formed limbs. Four paws sprang to life and sprouted sharp, menacing claws.
“It is the new world.” Th
e second thing lifted another arm and another and another until it was aware of all eight. “There is nothing to fear.”
“There is everything to fear.” The first thing growled, and the noised felt justified.
“You need not fear, my brother,” the Spider thing cooed. “I will protect you. I will spin a web around you and keep you safe.”
“I do not need your web.” The Growl thing grew bigger, stronger, darker. “I only need the shadows to keep me safe.”
“Then, you to your shadows, and me to my den.” The Chittering Underground pointed to a newly formed burrow where her multitude of children waited.
“I, to my shadows.” The Growl in the Night slinked into the pools of darkness between the trees and was gone.
The Chittering Underground began to weave. She spun her web across the ground and into the trees, a soft, protective blanket for her children. And while she worked, she kept one eye on the cliffs and revealed as another dot sparked into existence. Then another. One more. She paused in her work as a figure emerged from a cave in the distance. It was the first dot, the first cave, and the figure…the figure bowed low. The Chittering Underground was happy as she lowered herself into her cozy burrow.
Chapter 45
Daybreak
“Do you remember the time before the Eternal Gloaming?” the Growl in the Night shouted. “I do! I remember the pain, the loneliness, the silence.” His voice faltered. “I will not go back to the silence.”
The Chittering Underground bowed her head. The darkness was indeed different from the Eternal Gloaming, but it didn’t feel like the Eternal Darkness. It wasn’t the same. It couldn’t be the same. There was no going back to the time before; she knew that to be true, but then, what was this darkness?
“Maybe…” The Chittering Underground’s voice was pensive, thoughtful. “Maybe it is something new.”
The First Story Page 12