Window in the Earth Trilogy

by Fish, Matthew

  Christopher remembered the small head-mounted light in his pocket and pulled it out and turned it on, illuminating the room. To their surprise there appeared to be no damage at all.

  James flipped the light switch located behind him by the basement door, and, also to everyone’s surprise, the light immediately came on. Verifying their first impression as correct, everything in the house was completely untouched and undamaged. It was though the storm had never even happened in the first place.

  “What’s going on?” James asked as he scanned the room for any sign of the storm that had so obviously blown through.

  “Nothing’s wrong?” Bones asked, just as confused.

  “Wait…,” Christopher said as he eyed something curiously. “Something’s there….”

  “Where?” Bones whispered, scanning the area that Christopher was fixed upon.

  On the coffee table before them was Christopher’s copy of Watership Down, the one that James had rescued from the cave. That, however, wasn’t the strange part. The strange part was that standing on both sides of the book were two shimmering, smoky blue rabbits. The two strange creatures perked their ears up, noticing that they were being watched.

  “What in the world?” Bones’ jaw was slack with shock. “What the hell?”

  The rabbits quickly darted off and made their way about the room, knocking glasses and papers over in the process. The rabbits, which seemed as though they were made entirely of blue smoke and dust, were panicked and searching for any form of place to hide from the newly arrived onlookers.

  “Rabbits?” Christopher asked as he slowly made his way toward the coffee table, careful not to frighten them any further.

  “From the book?” James asked, confused as well. “How?”

  Christopher reached down for the book, shaking his head in disbelief. “I don’t know.” The moment his fingers came in contact with the novel the rabbits made some strange kind of puffing sound and floated up into the air, dispersing as a cloud of smoke against the ceiling. They left behind only a small spot of dust and a strange, bluish stain on the dirty white ceiling.

  The strange way that the rabbits were made of smoke made Christopher remember back to a night that he had been unable to sleep; there was something about smoke then, too, something about words being formed out of smoke. He was confused as to why he was remembering this now. Before he could think on it any further, he was interrupted by the ringing of the phone.

  Bones jumped at the eerie silence having been broken so suddenly by the ringing phone buried beside him. He pushed through a stack of papers, revealing the receiver. Picking up the phone, hand trembling, he asked, “Hello?”

  “Who is it?” Christopher whispered, scared that on the other end was a voice of some scary apparition.

  Bones waved Christopher off, as though everything appeared to be normal. “Ah, Janice…no…no…everything is fine here…. No, it just passed through. Yes.... No damage, not that I can tell at all.”

  “So the storm must have really happened then,” James whispered to Christopher, who nodded in agreement.

  “No damage there either, eh?” Bones continued. “Good…good…no, thanks for calling.”

  Bones slowly put the receiver down on the phone carriage, bringing his free hand up to massage the temples of his head with his thumb and middle finger. Apparently his headache had returned. “That was Janice,” he said, sure that both Christopher and James had already heard. “A pretty bad storm blew through the area, possibly even a tornado. No damage over there though. They were worried that it had hit us….”

  “It did,” Christopher said as he stared down at the book he was holding. “Maybe something stopped it.”

  “Do you think…?” Bones was cut off by loud music coming from the kitchen.

  Off in the other room, in the darkness, the radio was playing a catchy, upbeat song. It sounded like a much older song, one of those big band numbers from quite a long time back.

  “I know this song…,” Bones whispered, a serious look upon his face. “I know this song!”

  “It was on the weather alert station,” James said as he stared into the dark kitchen.

  “Dean Martin…,” Bones said as he began to recite the lyrics of the song being played. “‘Memories Are Made of This’.…”

  “What does it mean?” Christopher asked, wondering if this was just another part of all the strange things that were happening.

  “It was our song…,” Bones said as he plopped back down on the couch with a heavy sigh. “Me and Cat’s…I think it was one of the songs we danced to.…”

  “Do you think that something stopped that storm from hitting us?” James asked, still staring into the kitchen as the music hauntingly played out of the darkness.

  “I do…,” Bones whispered as he placed his hands over his head. Above him the photograph of himself and Catharine floated down from the ceiling, as though it had been blowing around the room like a leaf in the wind. “I think I will be going down into that cave after all.…”

  Chapter 10: The Forty-Year Dance

  Feet together, arms apart, dancing together and joined at the heart—with music in their ears and silence at their lips, beauty beheld in their eyes and rhythm in their hips, they waltz underneath the stars, underneath the world, where everything is beautiful, and everything full.

  Christopher could no longer sleep that morning; the sounds all around him were simply too loud and equally too annoying to do so. Grumpy, he forced his eyes open to accept the new day sun. Stretching and forcibly making his way up to his feet, he looked at the commotion going on around him. Bones and James were already up cooking some kind of breakfast together. The three had decided to all sleep down in the living room camp-out style, complete with sleeping bags and a lantern in lieu of a campfire. After the events of the night before, everyone in the house was just a bit shaken up. Even Kate and Poppy were brought in to sleep with them, and Bones had said that was a special treat which had never occurred before.

  Christopher, now mostly awake, made his way to the large window in the living room, the same one that he was sure had been completely blown out the night before. The view outside was a rather unique one. Across the property a large majority of the trees had either toppled over or been severely damaged. It looked as though a twister had actually come blowing through after all. Then it was true; something had saved them and the house as well. Surveying the damage outside, it was nothing short of a miracle that the house was not in a similar state of ill repair as the newly distressed trees.

  “Did we wake you?” Bones asked, poking his head through the large kitchen doorway.

  Did we wake you? Christopher thought sarcastically to himself. “How could you possibly not wake me…?” After all, they were carrying on like a pair of wild dogs in there; in fact, Poppy and Kate were better behaved and silent than Bones and James were. He finally said: “Yeah, I just got up.…”

  “Oh good!” Bones exclaimed, his head disappearing back into the kitchen. “It’s almost breakfast time!”

  James and Bones rushed through their breakfast that morning; it was like the two had a competition to see who could pile down the most food without choking. It was unclear as to who exactly was winning either; however, they were each making an impressive mess of themselves. Christopher poked around at his breakfast. The eggs were a lot better this time; it looked as though Bones was actually improving his cooking skills. However, he did not feel like eating as much as the other two. He never did well with having to eat in a hurry and was always curious about people who could, like the kind of kids at school who would just cram everything that they had at lunch down their throats in less than five minutes so that they could have the rest of the period to play outside. Christopher was always a more patient and slow eater. Besides, what was the point of hurrying when you could end up choking!

  “Eat up!” James encouraged, his mouth full of a meaty substance that was either bacon or sausage. “We’re going bac
k today. Bones is going in.”

  “Yep…,” Bones confirmed with a great big smile on his face. It was as though he was going on some kind of vacation, or pleasure trip.

  “You’re feeling awfully up about going in today…,” Christopher said, looking over to Bones, who was cheerfully eating away like there was no stopping, not ever.

  “Well…” Bones paused for a moment to swallow down more food. “Why not! Life is too short, and good days are too far and few between.”

  “So you’re not worried anymore?” Christopher asked.

  “Have you looked outside lately?” James answered for Bones.

  “Yeah,” Bones said. “Have you? It looks like an A-bomb hit those trees over there. That could have been us, but something stopped that from happening. The same thing that gave me my picture back—hell, the same thing that got you your book back to you.”

  “Yeah….” Christopher slowly took a bite of food. Bones did have a good point, and he really did feel so much better after going in and seeing his parents again. It almost gave him a sense of closure that he couldn’t have gotten any other way. Still, was this the right thing to do? Even if it was helpful, was it really harmless? “I guess that is true.…”

  “You’ve got to live!” Bones announced, holding his fork high in the air, a skewered piece of bacon stuck to the tines. “Live for the moment, live for the adventure.”

  “Adventure!” James parroted, holding up his fork as well.

  “You guys are crazy…,” Christopher said, shaking his head as he got up from the table. “I’m going to go get dressed.”

  Christopher made his way up to his bedroom, pulling out one of his suitcases from under his bed. One of these days he would actually have to spend some time unpacking. He did, after all, have a dresser in his room. Still, there had been so much going on that it just wasn’t at the top of his to-do list. Christopher looked out of the bedroom window; a lot of the trees were down around the house on that side as well. It was as though every tree surrounding the house had either been blown down or damaged.

  “Amazing…,” Christopher whispered to himself as he started to lace up his boots.

  James knocked once, letting Christopher know that he was coming in, and then quickly flung the door open. “Hey when you’re done, come downstairs. You’ve got to see this.”

  “What is it?” Christopher asked, wondering if something else had happened.

  “Just come down!” James said, slamming the door shut behind him and laughing hysterically.

  Christopher shook his head once more. Everyone was losing it around here. He went through a short mental checklist to make sure that he had everything ready to go back down in the cave. Content that he had everything he needed, he continued through the door, making his way back downstairs to the living room.

  Once there Christopher looked over and saw Bones, although not how he was used to seeing him. There in his dark blue military uniform was Bones, dressed up as though he was ready to hit the town on a hot date. His tattoos were covered, his face (for the first time) was cleanly shaven, and his salt-and-pepper gray hair was slicked back with gel. He looked rather impressive, albeit very overdressed for cave exploring.

  “You know you don’t have to dress up…,” Christopher said, looking at Bones as though he really had lost his mind completely. “I think the memories…they give you clothes to wear while you’re there.”

  “You’re going to get so dirty…,” James said, laughing hard at the sight of Bones.

  “You may laugh all you want,” Bones said in a very stern and dignified manner, “but I know I look good right now.”

  Christopher shook his head and laughed. The more he thought about it, he was happy to see everyone in such a good mood. Bones looked wonderful and acted like he felt like a million dollars. James was talkative, in good spirits, and just as crazy and adventurous as Bones. Christopher wished that he could share in their happiness; however, the truth was that he was still worried about quite a few things. He couldn’t help but worry about Kylie. After all, what would happen between them after she left? Did he have enough time to let her know that he liked her?

  “Right…,” James said as he pulled his backpack up to his shoulders and started to brief Bones about what would happen. “When you get through the window, it’ll feel cold. Like really cold, but it will pass after a while, so don’t get scared.”

  “Yes, sir!” Bones quickly barked back, mock-military style.

  Christopher chuckled as he got his gear ready. “Don’t go messing your shirt up either, soldier!”

  “If everything goes as before,” James continued, “you should see something. It will look a lot different from the rest of the room, but it won’t look as strange.”

  “Or as shiny—it won’t shine,” Christopher quickly added, remembering that the whole room in the cave seemed to glisten like wet snow, everything except for the photograph. “You might even feel like you’re drawn to it.”

  “Right, sir!” Bones said, nodding and still playing his soldier routine. “Don’t worry about me; I’ve been through a hell of a lot. I won’t piss my pants and run when it comes to game time!”

  James laughed as he continued on with his advice. “You probably won’t remember anything when the memory starts, but when you get out you’ll be real emotional.”

  “You’ll probably want to cry,” Christopher said. “A lot….”

  “Me, cry?” Bones said with a big smile on his face. “Sorry, soldier, not happening today.”

  The three of them walked—or marched, as Bones had liked to put it—to the cave along the creek. The day was much cooler than any that had come before. Christopher figured that the storm must have cooled down the air quite a bit. The area of downed trees only extended a small distance away from the house, and luckily the way to the cave was not blocked. Other than the ground moisture, it was quite a beautiful Ozark day. The sun was shining and the sky was perfectly blue. It reminded Christopher of the first day that he had spent there, that first morning where he looked out his bedroom window, amazed at the landscape around him. The hills, the trees…it was amazing for him to think about everything that had happened, and in such a short time!

  The three cautiously made their way into the cave; the pool had overflowed a bit, making it a bit more difficult to navigate around it and head through the main chamber. Stopping for a moment to show Bones the artwork on the cave walls, Christopher and James then got into their packs and pulled out their flashlights.

  In silence, the three slowly made their way down the back chamber of the cave. This time they all had to hold hands, as the water rushing from the pond was a lot swifter and came almost up to the tops of their ankles. James was careful as he lead them on; he didn’t want anyone to fall and get swept away and carried over the falls, which would certainly lead to disaster. Bones complained that his nicely ironed slacks were getting wet.

  As they made it to the winding tunnel, Bones had to stop for a moment. He wasn’t out of breath: he simply needed a smoke.

  “You know, second-hand smoke is supposedly bad for us,” James announced as he led them farther down the winding cave to the main chamber.

  “It’s a good thing you’re upwind then!” Bones said.

  “It’s a good thing I’m behind you then, too,” Christopher said objectively, his eyes squinting against the haze. “Thanks, thanks a lot.”

  “Eh,” Bones said as he put out his cigarette against the cave wall. “Sorry.”

  “Well,” James said as he led Bones into chamber at the bottom of the falls, “this is it.”

  Bones looked up in amazement at the height of the chamber ceiling. “So that’s where we were then?”

  “Yeah,” Christopher replied as he brought his flashlight beam up to the opening near the ceiling. Much more water rushed in from the drop-off above, and he thought back to when the run-off was little but a small series of rushing streams.

  “That’s a hell of a long way
up,” Bones said.

  “Imagine falling down that,” James said as he pulled out the length of rope from this backpack.

  “Where’s the window?” Bones asked as he scanned the area. All he saw around him were shimmering cave walls.

  “We’ve got to put out the lights…,” Christopher said, extinguishing his flashlight.

  James quickly followed suit, extinguishing the large lantern. He quietly stepped over to Bones, rope in hand.

  “Amazing…,” Bones whispered as his eyes adjusted to the dim light coming from the room. “There wasn’t anything there before.…”

  “We figured it has to be dark,” James said as he handed one end of the rope to Bones. “That’s why we didn’t find anything the first time we were here.”