by Sienna Skyy
He’d have held her elbow to keep her from slipping, because her feet would have been wet like his, and he’d have told her that the ape crabapple got its name because the roots were so very sturdy. And if one were to find oneself groping along in the dark, stuck in some rotten cavity of Mother Nature’s tooth, one could make use of said ape crabapple by grasping the roots and swinging from clump to clump in the same way that apes swing through the forest trees.
And if she were here, and he would’ve said that, he absolutely would’ve had her.
She would have laughed out loud. There would have been no more fold at her lip. She would have thrown back her black hair and laughed. And then she would have hooked his neck with her fingers.
“Bessy-me,” she would have said. And he would’ve kissed her.
A dragonfly dipped into the fissure. It lighted on a thick root just ahead. Like Bruce, it didn’t belong down there. But unlike Bruce, it could fly right back out again. Fly straight over to Gloria if it wanted.
“Dragonflies can travel up to eighty-five miles in a day,” he said to Gloria, who still wasn’t there.
This was a “true fact,” not a “fake fact.” The real fun happened when Gloria couldn’t tell the difference. He picked his way past the dragonfly.
“Carry that kiss to Gloria for me. Tell her I’ll be there soon.”
“Bruce!”
Jamie sounded so far away she might have called from beyond the surface of a body of water, not a fissure in the ground. The dragonfly swooped, dipped, and looped back above the fissure.
“Sorry!” Bruce called back.
He launched into the rock-out part of “Stairway,” hamming it up for Jamie; hamming it up to make his feet move faster.
“There walks a lady we all know-a-woah-woah!”
Hamming it up so that he wouldn’t think of a lock of that blue-black shine in someone else’s fingers.
He splashed and brayed. And then all at once his feet gave out and he buried the lyrics to “Stairway” under a scandal of curses.
He slid on his back, the granite having become a mudslide in an abrupt shift to the south. (Or was it the east?) And he was moving fast.
“Bruce!” Jamie called from very far away. He could only reply with one word, though he repeated it with machine-gun speed:
“Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit!!!!!”
Ahead of him, the very thing he’d been waiting for opened up. The end of this godforsaken fissure. The way out. If only he were not approaching it as though he were on a luge.
He grasped at the tangle of roots and managed to slow himself only a little as the Earth regurgitated him from its belly. He landed on his back, sprawled in a cold rush of creek, his mouth neither drawing nor expelling air.
And even through the mounting anxiety of not being able to breathe as he lay gaping at the sky, it seemed to him that the sky gaped back. Or rather, from above him the mouth of a small canyon gaped back.
In fact, he was laying in a big, round sinkhole, rimmed on the far side by a stand of beech and pine. And filled with a grove of maples.
The same damn place they’d landed last night.
His lungs awoke from their momentary narcolepsy and sucked in air. He filled them hungrily, too hungrily, and began to cough and gag. He rolled over in the creek, already wet so he might as well rinse off some of that sticky mud, and spat.
And as he raised his eyes, he could see in broad daylight with the absence of fog, a clearing in the red, red trees. And in its middle, there stood a lonely golden sapling rooted firmly in a stump.
He stood and squeegeed his sopping clothes with his palm.
“Oh my God!”
He looked up and saw Jamie picking her way down the canyon wall. He thought he detected a threat of nervous, hysterical laughter lurking in her voice. She had her hand clamped firmly over her mouth.
Bruce wore his darkest expression as she approached. After last night’s weird display among the trees, she’d damn well better not get the giggles.
She inspected him for injuries. But aside from the abused tailbone, he was fine. They decided to look again at the stump.
Jamie’s velvet bag was still laying forgotten from the night before, along with the discarded herbs and whatnots it had contained. He picked it up and looked inside. All that remained was a map she’d printed before they set out.
The old rotted stump stood just as gnarled and twisted as it had appeared in the moonlight, but under the drenching sun, he could not see the strange symbols.
He frowned. “Weren’t there some kind of markings?” He ran his hand along the gray bark, then slogged around the side of it, shoes creaking with brook water on each step.
“Hey, wait. Look.”
Jamie moved next to him.
He positioned her shoulders so that in her field of vision, the golden sapling stood centered among the red beeches along the cliff ledge above. The symbols now emerged clearly visible within the folds of bark.
“Odd,” she said, taking a step to the side.
He followed her movements, and as he did so, the markings vanished within the rolling wooden bumps and curves. Faded into a trick of shadow and perspective.
Bruce and Jamie repositioned themselves so they could see it again.
“Can you read it?” Bruce asked.
Jamie shook her head. “I have no idea what it means.”
At this, they looked over their shoulders, as if the forest might erupt again in cackles of derision. But this time, mercifully, no such thing occurred.
“If those damn trees were gonna have a laugh, they’d have done it when I rode on my butt into the creek.”
Jamie gathered some berries from the woodland. She smoothed out the map and turned it over, then squeezed them over the back, clumsily using the juices to copy the markings on the tree stump.
“I have no idea what to do with this. But we might as well capture it.”
“Good idea,” Bruce agreed. “We’ll figure out what to do later. Right now, I’m cold, wet, and starving. Let’s get out of here.”
They trudged back up the trail toward the van. In essence, they were no wiser than they’d been the night before, but Bruce felt different this time as they got into the car. He felt as though he’d learned something. He wasn’t in the least bit sure what that something was, but he felt it nonetheless.
NEW YORK
That strange woman entered again. The one with no mouth. She’d been coming around in the mornings and evenings, scraping and cleaning, so dreadfully silent. Gloria was uncomfortable even looking at her, certain that her appearance had something to do with the force that kept Gloria captive.
Still, Gloria preferred the mouthless one to Aaron Vance. In fact, she was starting to feel so isolated that it became a comfort to know this cleaning woman would be coming by from time to time.
The woman held Gloria’s plate of food, which as usual she’d not touched. How could she eat when she felt so sick? The woman gestured to Gloria, and though Gloria did not understand sign language, she understood that she was asking whether Gloria was finished.
Gloria nodded.
The woman acquiesced, but Gloria saw in her the slightest hint of disappointment, possibly even pity, at Gloria’s having refused another meal. Before turning to carry the plate, the mouthless woman patted Gloria gently on the arm.
A gesture so small, yet one of kindness. It caused tears to stir in Gloria’s eyes.
“Wait,” Gloria said.
The other paused and turned to her.
“What is your name?”
She thumped her chest, and then moved her hand in quick formations.
Gloria rose to her feet. “Hold on. I don’t know sign language, but I do know the alphabet. Can you do it again slowly?”
The woman repeated the formations with deliberate pacing.
“S-I-L-E-N-Y. Sileny?”
Sileny nodded and, despite not being able to smile, managed to bring warmth and lightness to he
r eyes. Gloria began to feel guilty over having feared her.
“I’m Gloria.” She clumsily spelled it out, though she realized the woman had no trouble hearing.
Sileny nodded and repeated the hand formation. She paused, awkward, and then retrieved a tissue that she used to dab at the corners of Gloria’s eyes.
“Thank you,” Gloria murmured, and sat down again.
“I’m just trying to figure out what’s happening. My fiancé Bruce must be frantic. He worries about me if I get so much as a hangnail, let alone . . .” she gestured at the penthouse.
Sileny stepped forward. Gloria believed she saw sympathy in the woman’s eyes.
“He’s just—he’s just probably worried I guess. And I’m worried for him. What he must be going through.”
Sileny laid a hand on her shoulder, pointed to Gloria’s eyes, then pointed ahead of her. Gloria tried to understand, but she could not figure out Sileny’s meaning.
Finally, Sileny gave up and gestured for her to wait. She disappeared and returned moments later with a book of what looked like children’s folktales. Sileny pointed to a particular page and gestured for Gloria to read, then returned to her task of cleaning.
An elaborate, scrolling illustration covered the facing page, with what looked like bristled dogs and a maze filled with alternating dust and water. Gloria read the passage.
Like their brethren coyotes, the Ketox pack scavenged the plains, eating flesh of the dead that crawled with worms, and wallowing in dust to keep cool under the baking sun.
One day a stranger came. He fed them clean meat and gave them toil, showing them how to round muskrats into the gulley. With the stranger’s guidance, the coyotes learned to terrify the muskrats in such a way that they cowered in the gulley, digging their burrows.
As the muskrats dug, the river slowly seeped into the burrows and flooded the gulley. The Ketox pack snapped those who tried to escape.
“There,” said the stranger. “In this way shall you coax the river into the plains. Your toil divides you from the others who feed on worms and wallow in filth. Now eat of the fauna that come to drink. Bathe in clean waters. Always move forward. Do not turn back to the path the river has already forged.”
The Ketox pack toiled daily in the service of the stranger. As bidden, they drove the muskrats forward each time the river crept into their burrows. They partook in the river’s cooling waters under the baking sun, and fed on the prey that came to the river to drink.
One day a storm bore down on the Ketox plain, and no hare nor grouse came to drink from the new creeping branch of the river. With the flooding rain, the river surged, and the muskrats scrambled to vacate their burrows.
A coyote named Tawehash hungrily watched the muskrats struggling in the water. The other coyotes bade Tawehash move forward, as their new master had warned them not to turn back. But Tawehash longed to fill his belly, and he turned back to the swollen fork of the river to feed on the muskrats.
The next day, the water subsided and the coyotes returned to their toil. Tawehash did not join them. In the distance, the Ketox saw a sandstone mogul at the fork where the old river breathed life into the plain. They knew it for the drowned body of Tawehash, who defied the master and his gift of toil.
Gloria looked at the illustration once more. A strange tale, to say the least, and much more so because Sileny had given it to her to read.
Sileny finished her cleaning and regarded Gloria.
Gloria shook her head. “Thanks for the book, but I’m afraid I still don’t get your meaning.”
Sileny approached her. She pointed at Gloria, and then pantomimed wiping a tear from her eye. She then shook her head and wagged a finger.
“You’re saying I shouldn’t weep.”
Sileny nodded. Then she indicated the book, pointed at Gloria’s eyes, and pointed forward as she had before.
“You’re telling me to look forward.”
Sileny nodded. She watched Gloria for a moment, and then caressed her cheek. She gathered the food tray and cleaning items and left. Gloria heard a click as Sileny locked the door behind her.
The coyote folktale seemed a variation on the biblical account of Sodom and Gomorrah, when Lot’s wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt. A strange variation, anyway. Mutant variation.
Was this Sileny person trustworthy? Who knew? Who cared?
Gloria went to the window and rested her forehead against the glass. The city surged below her. Almost within reach and yet worlds away.
A leaf swirled up to where Gloria stood at the window, so sudden that she gasped. It stopped near the sill and she examined it more closely. Not a leaf; a dragonfly. It opened its wings and closed them again gracefully, then repeated the motion.
Strange. This was awfully high off the ground for a dragonfly.
Gloria put her fingers to the glass where the dragonfly rested. When she did so, she felt an immediate longing for Bruce.
Eyes forward, Sileny had told her. Don’t look back.
What does that mean? Was Sileny suggesting she turn her back on Bruce? Gloria shook her head. It was beyond impossible.
If he were here, Bruce would have made up one of his fake facts about the dragonfly. Like it could sail to outer space or something. Or maybe he would have given her a true fact. Something fascinating he’d picked up from God-knows-where.
Tears streaming, she pressed against the glass and her fingers made a small halo around the dragonfly.
“Bessy-me, Bruce.”
11
MAINE
BRUCE STARED AT HIS PLATE. Jamie stared at the empty row of barstools that ran along the counter.
He had been famished, though now that the food sat in front of him he felt no desire to eat. Whatever energy he felt coming out of the woods had dissipated.
Jamie seemed to feel the same. A waitress had been filling whitecapped red squeeze bottles with ketchup at an unoccupied table next to them. Jamie brought several over to her table and arranged the bottles in a row, then in a box formation, and finally into a circle before growing bored and dropping her hands to her lap.
“Candace was the Finder,” Jamie said. “If she were with us things would be different.”
Bruce frowned. “I can’t believe what happened to her. The Pravus don’t exactly screw around, do they?” He studied Jamie’s soft face. Had he ever met anyone gentler? What would those demons do to her if they had a chance? The thought shook him so much that the table moved.
Jamie tipped her head in his direction and smiled slightly. She had no idea what he’d been thinking. Thank God.
“You’d better eat,” she said. “You’ll need your strength.”
He snorted. “For what? I’m not exactly slaying dragons here. My fiancée is probably shackled in some dungeon being taunted by a hideous beast, but all I can think to do is slide down a creek to some pagan altar and wait for the fairies to jump out.”
He laughed and shook his head.
She put a hand on his arm.
“Besides, you’re one to talk,” he added. “You haven’t touched your food, either.”
She inspected her cheeseburger. “You’re right. And this is silly. We have to eat. All I need is a little mustard and this burger’s as good as gone.”
Bruce nodded, picking up his own cheeseburger and signaling to the waitress. She returned with a tray of yellow squeeze bottles and placed one in the center of the ketchup Jamie had arranged.
A single mustard within a ring of red ketchup.
In his mind’s eye, Bruce saw the golden sapling in the stand of red maples. He blinked.
The tableside jukebox came on.
They looked at each other. Neither of them had put money in the machine.
Stranger still, the song that came through was “Stairway to Heaven.” What an odd coincidence.
Jamie took a bite of burger. “Hey, listen!”
“I know, I was just singing this song.”
“No, listen.”
“That’s not right, is it?” Jamie said.
Your heart is humming and it won’t go,
In case you don’t know,
The Earth is waiting for to draw you in.
Bruce frowned.
If you should find your love is true love,
Then do you know,
That you must wander toward the whispering winds.
The song played in the unfamiliar way for a moment, then reverted to the usual lyrics. Bruce and Jamie dropped their burgers to their plates and flipped through the pages in the jukebox.
Jamie tapped on the glass. “There it is. But it’s not by Led Zeppelin—it’s by a guy named Charles Forte.”
Bruce shook his head. “Odd. Whoever he is he did a pretty good Robert Plant.”
He skimmed the other songs in the jukebox, flipping through the selections, and then returned to the listing for “Stairway.”
This time, the song showed Led Zeppelin as the artist. No sign of the Charles Forte version, neither on the display or in the familiar lyrics that were once again playing.
They looked at each other.
Jamie’s face broke with a wide smile. “That happened, right?”
“That definitely happened—whatever it means.”
They returned to their cheeseburgers, this time wolfing them down with ravenous zeal. During their occasional pauses, they mulled over where to go next. Bruce wondered if perhaps the four pillars somehow represented the four corners of the United States: northeast, southeast, southwest, and northwest.
Jamie ruminated on the idea. “Maine is obviously the northeasternmost state. Maybe we should hit Florida, California, and Washington?”
They pored over the road atlas.
“I don’t suppose there’s a Stairway to Heaven in any of these states, huh?” Bruce said.
Jamie smiled at him. “Do you really think anything is going to be that obvious?”
“I can dream, can’t I?”
They paid their bill and resolved to head west to California. This quest seemed to be about going with one’s gut and Bruce’s gut wanted the OC. They climbed back into the van, fortified with a renewed sense of purpose, and headed down the sleepy street.