“What’s that?” Edward asked.
“That’s your world.” The devil smirked. “The planet Earth, Gaia, Terra, where you come from.”
Edward stared in amazement as it grew larger and larger.
“Which part is England?”
“Give it another moment or two. You can’t see it yet. It’s too small.”
England - too small? Mountains too tiny to be seen? Cities too small….the thoughts staggered his imagination. In a way, this struck him as more incredible than the devil or the aliens, or any of the other amazing things he had seen.
England was small… He could barely comprehend…
4
Edward had been on the flying saucer for forty years. He wasn’t sure if that meant he had been asleep for decades or if time moved differently in outer space. Mandelesian told Edward the date as he landed their pod in the woods.
When Edward asked him how he knew, the devil explained that the pod kept track of that sort of thing.
“Did you expect this?” Edward asked.
The devil laughed, “It was forty years for you, but it was almost two hundred for me! No, I didn’t know so much time had passed. When you travel beyond the world powerful forces have to be used. They warp time and space. I don’t even know where the years went. We may have been a decade while we were just in our escape pod.”
“But we didn’t sleep. It was less than an hour!” Edward protested.
“Time is subjective. Minutes passed there and years passed here.”
“Madness! So, how old am I now?”
The devil laughed again, “You humans are wonderful. I love your vanity. You still look young, and I doubt you got any wiser.”
“And they’ll be after us now, the aliens?”
“That’s right. They’ll hunt us for the rest of our days. You’ll need to hide and run all of your life.”
“What about Dever?”
“Forget him. He’ll be half-way to the other side of the solar system by now… and they will ruin him, I assure you.” The way the devil pronounced the word “ruin” really haunted young Edward. It was spoken so slowly and so deeply as to mean something incomprehensibly terrible.
The wall opened and the two of them climbed out. The devil took the opportunity to piss against a tree. As Edward watched, he swore he could see at least a couple of the leaves shriveling as a result.
“What will you do?” Edward asked him.
The devil bowed his head, ever so slightly, “By your leave, I’ll get to work seeing if I can find a way back to my own planet.”
“Is it true? Are all devils and demons just aliens?”
“Be careful how you use the word ‘just.’ I fear you could shrivel anything by putting those four letters in front of it. That’s just the sun in the sky. There’s just the dirt and grass under our feet.”
“I can see you’re skilled in misdirection. Dever would have admired your ability to dodge questions.”
The red man smiled, “Yes. All of the devils who have been real came from the second planet of our solar system. The others were just lies men made up to excuse their own behavior.”
“And the silver men are from the farthest planet?”
“No, not the farthest, but they are from cold Pluto.”
“Every time you answer a question you leave me with three more. I get the feeling like I am being led somewhere. You are like the devils in the books. You know how to put thoughts in my head and make me think they are my own.”
Mandelesian’s red cheeks burst into a warm and happy smile. “You are too kind. Now, I must be off before they come for us. Go hide. Run like you’ve never run before.”
“Ah, ah, ah!” Edward waved his finger. “I believe you promised to teach me a spell, something I could use to defend myself. Did you think a magician’s apprentice would forget such a thing?”
“I would have thought you’d had enough of the strange to last you?” the devil asked.
“The normal won’t protect me, will it?”
He shook his red head, “No, it never protects anyone. The strange devours whatever it wants. Alright, I’ll teach you a spell – a good one – but I want to warn you. I don’t have to, but I want to. Edward, the more you change the world, the less you will belong in it. Don’t let too much magic into your life. Don’t let in more than you must. It will destroy any hope you have at happiness. Look at what it’s done already.”
“I won’t be talked out of this.”
“No, I don’t suppose you will,” the goat-legged man sighed. “I want you to picture an inverted pyramid in your head. Then a grey sun. Next a black dog.”
The devil made a strange shape with his fingers. “Then this shape, and finally imagine the sound of running water pulling a rock away from the shore.”
“What will all of that do?”
“When you’ve done all of that, you need to launch the spell. If you have a good imagination, imagine a moment of great pain, or great intensity… Something which really affected you. You need to cause an explosion of feeling in your heart to set the images alight. Then the spell will fire.”
“And what will it do?”
“Edward, I have just taught you the spell for turning living matter into stone.”
Edward smirked, “Okay, I’m going to try it -”
“Not on me, you don’t!” The devil laughed and then began running impishly away. He was so funny that, despite his circumstances, Edward felt the desire to laugh along with him. He only did so for a second until he felt self-conscious about sharing a joke with a devil.
* ** *** * *
Edward wanted to run, like Mandelesian had suggested, but he decided that he wanted to try the magic first. A voice in his mind worried that when he tried the spell, it would backfire. Could he really trust a red-skinned monster? But Edward didn’t listen to that voice. He imagined an inverted pyramid. He imagined a grey sun. He pictured a black dog. He remembered the shape Mandelesian had made with his fingers. He thought about the sound of running water pulling a rock away from the shore. And then… And then… He thought about his Jenny. She was either dead or ancient, with her whole life behind her. He’d had lost her forever!
The young magician had closed his eyes as he went through the components of the spell. The devil hadn’t told him to, but it just made sense. He opened his eyes, and nothing looked very different to him. Did he have to do something to pick a target? Maybe hold a flower?
Then he noticed. The great brown, green, and yellow tree which they had been standing under - the one he had worried the devil had poisoned by pissing against - that tree wasn’t made of wood anymore. It was stone. It was grey and hard. In places it almost looked crystalline.
He was suddenly filled with horror at the thought of what he had done. Sure, he had cut down trees before. He lived in a wooden house. His bed frame was wooden. The books he read were written on paper. But this tree hadn’t been cut down. It had been changed to stone. It wasn’t just dead. The remains weren’t even made of living material anymore.
He began wondering if there had been any birds inside, insects, spiders, squirrels… He wondered if they would have been turned to stone as well, or if they might be trapped alive and suffocating!
He ran his hands over the hard bark. He tried to press into it with his fingernail. Instead of yielding, the way wood does, the stone hurt his finger.
“How do I undo it?” He asked out loud, but the devil had left.
So, he tried casting the spell on the tree a second time. He imagined an inverted pyramid. He imagined a grey sun. He pictured a black dog. He remembered the shape Mandelesian had made with his fingers. He thought about the sound of running water pulling a rock away from the shore. And then he thought about Jenny. Had she married anyone that he knew? Did she understand that he hadn’t been able to come back, or did she think he had run away?
As he opened his eyes, he decided that he didn’t want to use her to cast the spell anymore. It was up
setting him too much.
The tree was still grey. It was still stone.
So was the grass under his feet for about three long paces.
He took a step backwards and felt the long hard sharp blades of rock threatening the soft soles of his shoe.
Alright, he would try one more thing.
He attempted the spell backwards. He thought about the sound of running water pulling a rock away from the shore. He remembered the shape Mandelesian had made with his fingers. He pictured a black dog. He imagined an inverted pyramid. Then finally… he imagined how Jenny must have felt when he didn’t come home that night.
He opened his eyes. His hand was on the tree trunk. It was wooden again! It was alive. He heard a thrush as three or four birds, all at once, burst from the upper branches and into the air. He felt their escape in his heart.
Leaping out of the stone circle of grass, Edward decided he had wasted enough time. With a small amount of embarrassment, he noted that his eyes were wet. He wiped them and ran. He was going to have to find his way into town. At least he had the spell. It would be a good tool, as long as he knew how to undo the curse.
He didn’t spare even a moment to consider the spaceship that he had left in the woods.
5
It was a great relief to Edward when he came upon the farmhouse. At first, it didn’t look any different than it would have forty years before. As he stepped closer, the strange automobiles shocked him. They looked more like they had been built by the Plutonians than anything that would have come from Earth. He was relieved to see a British flag flying on the porch.
A small white dog ran up to greet him. He seemed friendly enough. Edward gave him a pet and walked on.
Edward briefly considered stealing one of the cars, but couldn’t be sure that he would know how to pilot it. He’d never tried before. There was a small stone garden covered with flowers. A thin waterfall flowed down off of the hill and through it. As Edward admired the stone work, he noticed a little grey rabbit hiding between the roses. It was staring at him and sniffing. The little bunny stayed still, as if he was hoping that Edward didn’t really see him.
It occurred to Edward that he was going to need help. He needed to get back into London. He needed money and a place to stay. If the devil had told the truth and they had been gone for forty years, he was homeless, penniless, and jobless. That wouldn’t do.
He looked around to make sure that no one was watching, then he went over to the flower garden. The rabbit panicked and ran away when it saw him coming. He reached his hand into the waterfall and splashed just enough of the water into his hair and shirt. The cold felt unexpectedly good on his forehead. It was very cold, even a little painful, but it helped him to relax again. He supposed he was relaxing for the first time in about forty years.
Edward walked around to the front of the house and calmly knocked on the heavy wooden door.
No one answered.
He knocked again, three times.
He called out, “Hello! Is anyone home? I require some assistance!”
Finally, he heard some movement within. Someone was walking down a staircase. They walked slowly.
He let a little time pass, and still no one appeared or answered the door.
He banged on the door again. He knocked with his knuckle. Then, finally noticing the antique metal knocker, he lifted and dropped that three times. It was shaped like a rabbit’s face.
A small voice answered quietly. It was a woman’s voice. “What do you want?”
“Thank you! I require assistance. I appear to be stranded.”
The door opened, just a crack. A little brass chain prevented it from opening farther than that. Brown eyes and a mess of curly hair (they were both the same shade) peered suspiciously out at him.
“Who are you?”
It finally occurred to Edward that the accent was American.
“My name is Edward. I’m afraid that my fiancée and I had a bit of an argument. She left me at the side of the road…”
The eyes looked him over carefully. He hoped that the wet tuxedo would be enough to confirm his story.
“Please. It’s cold. My dignity has suffered enough today. Won’t you show a little mercy to a fallen angel?” He looked into her eyes and smiled. He was pouring it on thickly.
She undid the chain.
When the door opened, Edward could finally see the woman. She looked to be in her early forties. She wore men’s trousers and a brown and white fuzzy sweater. Her feet were bare. She was tightly holding onto a large and fat black and grey rabbit. It was bigger than the dog Edward had seen outside.
She quickly closed the door behind him and ushered Edward into her living room. As they walked in, he saw two more small furry animals bouncing nervously past the couch and into what he presumed was a dining room.
“You seem to have quite a few rabbits,” Edward said with a smile. The smile was intended to communicate a love of animals to her.
She smiled nervously. “About six.”
A movement at the top of the stairs caught his eye. He saw two more watching him from the landing. There was a chocolate covered lop-ear and a long haired grey. Obviously, there were more than six. The home smelled strongly of animals.
“So, do you need to use the phone or something? Can I get you some coffee?” she asked.
“Coffee would be lovely. If it wouldn’t be a terrible imposition, I’d love a ride into London?”
She looked at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. “I’ll just fire up my spaceship once I get the kettle on!”
As she disappeared into the kitchen, Edward found himself completely unsure of whether she was joking or not.
He took the initiative to find himself a clean place to sit in her living room. The furniture was very strange, and this is what finally did convince him that he was in the nineteen-seventies. Some of it was round, and some of it was oblong. One couch was green, another was red, and the third one, the round one, was blue. Aside from the brown wooden legs, they didn’t look like proper furniture to him. They were more like stuffed animals.
He had first chosen the red couch, but when he almost sat on a little black bunny, he instead chose the green. He was relieved when he managed to sit without squashing any living beings. Once he successfully reclined, Edward noticed the paintings on the wall. They were all garishly colored, as if a child had designed them. There were animals, naked men and women, and swirls of color. Technically, they were all poor. But he could tell that they were operating under a style he’d never seen before. In the end, he decided they must be the result of all of the magic and circus posters they had covered the town with in his day.
“Do you take milk or sugar?”
“That would be nice,” Edward called back to her.
He noticed a number of magazines on the table in front of him. The newest appeared to be from June of 1973. The fashions were shocking. They were apparently women’s magazines, but he had seen less scandalous pornography in his day.
She came back in carrying two mugs of coffee. She set one down on the table in front of him. “You know, I just realized, I don’t even know your name!”
He stood and offered her his hand. “I’m… Eddie. And you are?”
She reached out to shake his hand, “I’m Mia Dorian - ohh!”
With surprise, she pulled her hand back as he politely kissed her knuckle.
“I’m sorry, was that too forward?”
“No… no… I guess I just thought it was something people do in movies! No one’s actually done that before…”
“Well, I’m pleased to have surprised you… and also very sorry that you are surrounded by such brutes… now, you mentioned that you had a spaceship? I would be very grateful if you could help me get to London.”
Mia turned her head at an angle and looked at him, “Eddie, you are a very strange man.”
Then she laughed.
“I’m actually a magician. I think I’ll have to use you
as my rabbit supplier in the future. Do you also haberdash? I’d love to simplify my shopping.”
“Show me a trick,” she said suspiciously and impishly.
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly… well, perhaps I could.” He reached down and lifted the mug of coffee up above their heads. All the while, he looked her in the eye with a ridiculous grin.
When the mug was as high as he could reach, he turned it over. Mia shrieked and jumped away, only to finally notice that the cup was empty. Nothing fell.
She wasn’t shy about dropping to her knees right in front of him and touching the carpet.
“I can’t even find a wet spot!”
“Well, there you go.”
Edward sat back down. Mia stood up and then sat opposite him, on the red couch. She cuddled with the bunny who was napping there.
“Are you really from London?”
“Of course.”
“I’d love to see England. I’ve never really traveled.”
It was difficult for Edward, despite his first-rate training, to restrain his reaction to that. He wasn’t in England!
“Well, what’s the furthest you’ve been?”
“You mean, like, on a first date?” She joked.
“I don’t follow,” Edward replied, clueless.
“So, what happened between you and your fiancée?” She asked.
It began to occur to Edward that he didn’t have a very good plan. Alright, he was indoors, but he obviously didn’t have a way to get to London. In fact, getting back to England at all was going to be very difficult. Then again, maybe he shouldn’t go home? Maybe he needed to hide somewhere far away from his old life?
“We had an argument. She drove off. It’s embarrassing,” Edward lied. “Will your husband be home soon?”
Mia shook her head.”No. I just live here with the bunnies now. But…um… look at you. You look like you’ve been dragged through the forest. Why don’t you go and get cleaned up? The bathroom is just down the hall, the second door on the right.”
Edward stood. “Thank you. I have been through a very difficult experience. How far from the city are we?”
Magic Makes You Strange (The Brontosaurus Pluto Society Book 1) Page 4