The First Story

by C Bradley Owens

  “The Council is gone!” The Origamist’s voice shot through the room like a bolt of electricity. His fists slapped on the table and threatened to upturn his teacup. “I’ve seen to it.” He lifted himself to a standing position and smoothed the front of his robes. “It is done.”

  “There’s something you’re not telling me,” the Angler said, ignoring the slight outburst.

  “It’s nothing.” The Origamist waved his hand dismissively but stopped when he saw the anger behind the Angler’s eyes. “Fine. It’s Baba Vedma.”

  “What about her?”

  “She is…remarkably resistant to change.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I tried,” the Origamist said. “I changed her appearance. I changed her name. I gave her a job. She should have been happy. She wasn’t eating children. She wasn’t living in a rat trap. But—”

  “She’s an elder Aspect.” The Angler crossed his arms in front of his chest and stood tall. “She might be the eldest of all the Aspects. She’s too powerful, even for the First Story.”

  “Pish-posh.” The Origamist waved his hand again but stopped once more. “Yes, she seems to be too powerful as yet. But once I make all the changes permanent—”

  “They’re not permanent yet?” The Angler became excited and took the Origamist by the shoulders. “Then, there’s time to go back. Stop this before—”

  “There’s no stopping this.” The Origamist pulled back from the Angler’s grasp. He put his hand deep inside the sleeve of his robe and pulled out a stone that he then had to hold in two hands. The stone’s surface was marked by shallow carved grooves that formed the shape of a running animal, maybe a deer, maybe something older.

  “What are you doing?” The Angler stepped back.

  “Correcting a mistake. I should have done this alone from the beginning. After all, what help do you offer? You distracted two of the Council members while I did all the hard work and confronted Baba Vedma.”

  “We had an agreement.” The Angler tensed.

  “That agreement has been voided by your incessant whining.” The Origamist waved his hand over the stone. Tiny particles on the rock danced to his machinations, and the Angler felt himself changing.

  “Stop this,” the Angler pleaded.

  “Don’t worry,” the Origamist said in an obviously dishonest voice. “I’ll let you keep your metal table. I know how much it means to—”

  The Angler lunged forward and snatched the stone from the Origamist’s hands, shoving the other man roughly as he went. The Origamist flopped to the floor as the Angler tucked the stone under his arm, safely in his coat; then he was out the door and in the boat before the Origamist could begin picking himself off the floor.

  “No!” the Origamist shouted and ran to the door in time to see the Origamist bobbing toward the horizon. He slapped his fist against the door frame. “The code,” he whispered and ran out of the cabin and toward the City.

  Chapter 53

  A Drink at the Inn

  “Who did this to us?” Frau Iver shouted as she shoved the door open and wafted into the room followed by the Toy Peddler.

  “Tis about time the two of you got here.” Baba Vedma motioned for the Innkeeper to bring more drinks.

  “Come, sit down.” The Sister of Monsters pointed to the empty chairs at the table. “We have much to discuss and nowhere near enough time.”

  “It was the Angler,” the Toy Peddler offered as he slid into a chair and took a mug from the Innkeeper. He paused just a moment to nod and smile at the grizzled old face.

  “The Angler?” The Sister of Monsters turned to Baba Vedma.

  “Of course.” Baba Vedma stood and paced. “The Origamist wouldn’t have enough influence alone. He would be needing another powerful Aspect. The Angler deals with endings.”

  “And the Origamist deals with changes,” the Toy Peddler thought out loud. “It makes perfect sense.”

  “None of this makes sense!” Frau Iver slammed her insubstantial hands onto the table, and the whole room shook with her anger.

  “Calm down,” the Sister of Monsters pleaded.

  “Calm down! Calm down!” Frau Iver twisted her misty face into the snarl so intense that it clearly resonated through her natural vagueness. “Do you know what they did to me? A child! They made me think I was pregnant.”

  The entire room fell silent. All eyes turned to gaze upon Frau Iver in all of her majestic rage. Her gown whipped about her body in vicious circles; her hair twisted above her head as if in the midst of a cyclone; her outstretched fingers shot blasts of icy cold throughout the space.

  “Stop that!” Baba Vedma shouted with an air of authority only she could have mustered in the face of Frau Iver. “There will be time for tantrums later. Now be the time for cool reason. Sit down!” Baba Vedma pointed sternly to the chair in front of Frau Iver.

  The air pulsed with cold, the preternaturally angry wind gusted and ebbed, and Frau Iver bowed her head. She floated toward the chair and fluttered to rest at the table.

  “Good,” Baba Vedma said.

  “We… I am so sorry they did that to you.” The Sister of Monsters swallowed hard to keep her own anger in check.

  “What’s our next move?” The Toy Peddler placed a hand near Frau Iver’s arm. He allowed his fingers to briefly brush the fabric of her sleeve. She looked down and then away.

  “Now that the Council is back together, we can—” Baba Vedma sat back at the table.

  “Wait.” The Sister of Monsters placed her hand on her temple and grimaced. “We’re not all here.”

  The others looked at her and then into their own memories. Frau Iver thought about a little boy, frail and needy, but with a wicked sense of humor. Baba Vedma remembered an annoying child who made her wish she really did eat children. The Toy Peddler saw a friend in his memory. Someone who was unpleasant so much of the time, but comfortably unpleasant, like family. The Sister of Monsters continued to massage her temple. There was something stuck in her brain, a thought, a memory, a vision of someone, somebody, some…thing made of wood.

  “The Puppeteer!” she shouted as the words flooded into her mouth.

  Chapter 54

  Another Meeting in the Woods

  “La, la, la!” the Puppeteer shouted. “La, la, la,” the Puppeteer sang. “La, la, la,” the Puppeteer whispered. “La, la, la.” He started again.

  “La, la, wow!” The morning was lovely. “La, la, now.” He raced against the wind. “La, la, bow.” He greeted the sunrise. “La, la, how.” He started again.

  “La, la, what?” He asked the question quickly, suddenly, before it no longer occurred to him to do so, and the tune, incessantly repeating like tidal surges in his brain, stopped. He noticed for the first time that he was in the forest. But he didn’t recognize the trees or the clearings or the path. Everything was strange, off by just a bit. The sun shouldn’t be so high; the wind shouldn’t be so luscious; the sunrise should be…gloaming.

  He tripped over his ridiculously oversized feet and tried to curse. “What the hey diddle?” He tried again. “This is fiddle-dee wrong!” The words shifted in his mouth. He knew what he wanted to say, but the words refused to be uttered. “I can’t say naughty words!” he shouted into the pleasant wind. “And I have to say naughty?”

  He stomped—as well as his enormous feed allowed—further into the trees. He tried to slap a tree, to release a modicum of anger, but his oversized hands made a ludicrous puffy sound against the bark. “I can’t even slap things!” He looked at his bulbous fingers, only three and a thumb. “And where’s my middle finger?” He curled his fist to the sky. “It’s the most important finger. I’d be showing it to you right now if I had one.” He looked at his defiantly raised arm and thought how goofy he must appear.

  “Of course,” he muttered. “That’s why I don’t have one. I’ve been child-proofed.”

  He walked on, well past the point where the path helped create tiny spaces between the trees.
He was in the wilderness now. He forced his way through bramble and blackberry thorns, and his inked and colored skin, the most unnaturally bright shade of beige he had ever seen, refused to show even the slightest scratch for more than an instant. “That’s right,” he thought out loud. “I’m a cartoon. I can’t really be hurt. I could jump off a cliff and—” Another thought hit him. He reached behind his back with intent and slowly produced a tiny, pink umbrella. “Seriously! Where did that even come from?” He sniffed it and then threw it away. “This is cruel and unusual torture!”

  The trees grew even thicker, but his anger propelled him. He ripped limbs, small ones, from trees, and he steamrolled bushes, short ones, in his very nearly straight path toward…nothing really. He was simply hoping to get to a place where no one could see what had become of one of the creepiest, most powerful Aspects in all of Creativity.

  “I am the Puppeteer!” he shouted at a bush that was just a bit too tall to walk over. “I will not be treated like this!”

  “How would you like to be treated?” An extremely pleasant voice asked from the shadows.

  “What’s it to you?” The Puppeteer hissed and puffy-slapped the slightly too tall bush.

  “I’m Flux.” A figure emerged from underneath the trees, a slight yet sturdy figure that seemed both frail and powerful at the same time. “That bush you are attempting to hurt is named Barnard. He and his wife, Imelda, over there.” Flux pointed to another bush near the Puppeteer. “They have sixty-seven and a half children who would all appreciate you leaving their father alone.”

  The Puppeteer turned and gazed wide-eyed, which in his current state meant extremely wide, at Flux. “How does one have a half child?”

  Flux lifted a hand and cupped it conspiratorially and whispered loudly, “He was an accident. Bernard and Imelda don’t want him to know yet. Too young.”

  “Who are you again?”

  “Flux.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of you.” The Puppeteer slumped down on a nearby rock.

  “It’s okay, Marty.” Flux patted the air in the direction of the rock. “You’re a rock. People can sit on you. It is one of your nicest uses.”

  “What?” The Puppeteer looked under his bottom at the rock and then stood.

  “That’s Marty. He’s a rock. One time, a long, long time ago, he was just lying in the forest, minding his own business, as rocks are wont to do, when suddenly, out of the mist stepped—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” The Puppeteer waved his hands dismissively. “I’m sure Marty the Rock’s story is fascinating, but I just do not have time—no, that’s not right—I just do not care.”

  “Well, that’s very cynical.” Flux sat demurely on Marty. “The Puppeteer was always angry, but it was a sad anger, not a rage-y anger. Not the slapping an innocent bush kind of anger. More the taking someone and turning them into a creepy, lifeless meat doll sort of anger.”

  “I wasn’t angry when I—” The Puppeteer cocked his head. “How do you know my old story?”

  “You’re one of the Council, and one of the most powerful Aspects ever conceived.”

  “Yeah, well, I used to be.” The Puppeteer held up his ludicrous hands. “But my story has been changed. How do you remember the original story?”

  “I remember all stories and all versions of all stories. Every draft, every revision, every brainstorming session. Even the slightest change.”

  “That sounds horrible,” the Puppeteer sputtered. “So, what about this current story, the one that’s remaking the world? What do you know about it?”

  “Everything.” Flux smiled and patted Marty while standing. “It started as a mere idea as so many stories do; then it grew as so many stories don’t. It became a thought, then a wish, then a compulsion.”

  “The Angler, right?” The Puppeteer stepped toward Flux, his painted eyes awash with curiosity.

  Flux smiled a warm, delightful smile. “And the Origamist.”

  “The Origamist!” The Puppeteer shouted and slapped his hands together; there was a big puff of air when he did so. “I should have known. He was always trying to change things.”

  “It is his nature.” Flux danced around Bernard and petted Imelda. “Just as it is your nature to act against change.”

  “What? I don’t act against change.”

  “Sure you do.” Flux bent and whispered something to a sprig just beginning to grow its first leaves. “Just like Baba Vedma and the Frau Iver. You three are villains at heart.”

  “Villains? That’s absurd.” The Puppeteer turned away and stared at the dark spaces between the trees. His anger flared, and he wanted to show the Origamist and the Angler the delights of being sawed open and stuffed with sawdust. “Okay, you might have a point, but I am nothing like Frau Iver and Baba Vedma.”

  “Well, that’s not entirely true. Baba Vedma is very different, but you and Frau Iver? Very similar.”

  “All right, all right, whatever. I just need to know how to undo all of this.” The Puppeteer waved his arms above his head chaotically.

  “You want to fight against the First Story’s influence?”

  “Of course I do! Evidently, I hate change. Don’t you know that?”

  Flux giggled. “I like your sarcastic sense of humor. Always have.”

  The Puppeteer tensed his jaw, which felt like squishing marshmallows in his mouth, and hissed through his gushy teeth, “How do I fight the First Story’s influence?”

  “Well, I would probably use the Second Story. It’s nearly as powerful.”

  The Puppeteer whirled around; a lightbulb surged in his head. “Where…?”

  “The Caves of Providence, of course.” And Flux danced away into the trees, whispering to everything on the way. The Puppeteer watched Flux’s dance for a moment and then turned and headed toward the mountain range in the distance.

  Chapter 55

  A Plan

  “Have you seen any trace of the Puppeteer?” the Sister of Monsters asked Baba Vedma.

  “No, I truly had forgotten all about him until you mentioned his name.” Baba Vedma’s guilt was mirrored in everyone at the table.

  “He had been changed into a cartoon, whatever that is. I remember now,” the Toy Peddler offered, his head in his hands. “How are we going to fight all of this?”

  “We keep going forward.” A chill breeze accompanied Frau Iver’s words.

  “We keep remembering,” the Sister of Monsters added.

  “We find the Second Story.” Baba Vedma stood up so suddenly that the table shook without her touching it. “I’ve been a fool. The answer was right there the whole time.”

  “What?” Many of the others said together, and those who didn’t say it, thought it.

  “The only way to resist the power of the First Story be with a story nearly as powerful, right?” Everyone nodded awkwardly as Baba Vedma continued, “That’s why we’ve been noticin’ these gaps in the changes, holes in the new narrative. The First Story be not as all-powerful as we thought.”

  “Right,” the Sister of Monsters interjected. “We were just talking about that. The reason all of these patrons found the Inn, the fact that the Inn still exists at all, us remembering ourselves, all of it suggests that the First Story’s influence isn’t complete.”

  “And the Second Story might be able to counteract that influence.” The Toy Peddler stood with Baba Vedma.

  “The Second Story is in the Caves of Providence,” Frau Iver stood as well. “There are thousands, maybe millions of caves there. How can we ever hope to find the right one?”

  “We will find it.” the Sister of Monsters stood with the others. “I know we will.”

  “Knowin’ is all fine and dandy, dear,”—Baba Vedma patted the Sister of Monster’s shoulder—“but if it be all the same with you, I’d prefer a map.”

  “There’s a map?” Many of the others said in unison; the ones who didn’t, thought it.

  “We need to find the Keeper of Ways.” Baba Vedma nodded
fiercely.

  The others slumped back into their chairs.

  “What?”

  “What? You need to ask?” The Sister of Monsters shook her head.

  “No one knows who the Keeper of the Ways is, or even if he or she exists at all.” The Toy Peddler folded his arms on the table and rested his chin on one elbow.

  “So, we don’t know somethin’,” Baba Vedma said as brightly as she was able. “Has that ever stopped us before?”

  The others exchanged looks, and then each shrugged in turn. The Sister of Monsters turned her large bulbous eyes toward Baba Vedma. The spindly hairs above the black orbs bristled. “Where do we start?”

  “Your eyes!” Baba Vedma pointed at the Sister of Monsters, who immediately lifted her hands to her face.

  “What about them?” The Sister of Monsters’ hands flew all over her head.

  “They’re back to the way they used to be before all of this began.” Baba Vedma nearly laughed. “That’s a good sign.”

  “Maybe we can do this.” The Toy Peddler absentmindedly reached into his pocket and pulled out a square of cloth.

  “Your sack.” Baba Vedma pointed at the Toy Peddler, who unfolded the cloth until it blossomed into an overstuffed canvas bag.

  He opened the mouth and thrust his hand inside, thinking of Baba Vedma as completely as he could. He brought just what Baba Vedma needed, out a scroll that was tied with a purple ribbon. “For you,” he said, handing the parchment to Baba Vedma.

  “This be a very, very good sign.” Baba Vedma slid the ribbon off and unrolled the parchment flat on the table. It was blank, except for a large red X near the top left corner.

  “What is it?” the Toy Peddler asked.

  Baba Vedma did not answer; instead, she sat and stared at the X. It was moving ever so slightly.

  “It’s a map.” The Sister of Monsters pointed to the X. “Right?”

  “It’s a blank map.” The Toy Peddler motioned to the rest of the parchment, seeing his present clearly for the first time. “What good does that do? Let’s try again.” He concentrated on the Sister of Monsters. He opened his sack, thrust his hand inside, and produced a…doll.