Earthly Worlds

by Billy Wright

“To the Source.”

  “And where’s that?” Stewart pressed.

  Bob sighed with impatience. “English is such an inadequate language sometimes. ‘Where’ is just not quite the right word. But nor is ‘when,’ nor ‘what,’ nor ‘why.’ Think of it like your sun, that big glass marble that gives light to everything in these parts. The Source is the place where Light comes from, and shines over all the worlds, yers, mine, the Penumbra and the Borderlands.”

  “Is it on the map?” Liz asked, unfolding it.

  “You’ll see it as a lake, but that’s only part of how it really looks. Calling it simply a lake, ’tis like looking at a picture of a lake versus seeing the lake in all that it is, surface to bottom, shore to shore, encompassing everything living in it. Because ye’re human, ye’ll only see the picture version, but they won’t hold that against ye.”

  “‘They’?” Liz said.

  Bob doffed his top hat to scratch his black-fringed bald pate. “Well, everybody.” Then he shrugged. “Don’t ye worry, lassie, ye’ll see. Shall we be off then?”

  ***

  They hurried down the riverside trail by the light of the moon, feeling more nervous and vulnerable after having left their stone fort behind. Silvery light shone down through the gap in the canopy, bright enough to cast shadows and make the going easy. Even high above, the moon looked larger than normal, and the face of the Man in the Moon looked strangely more defined.

  They kept close together, and Liz still looked at Stewart with no small amount of fear. He needed to talk to her about what had happened, but it was more important for them to be moving.

  Bob said, “That dark elf might still be on our heels, but ’tis better to present a moving target, is it not? When we get close enough to the Source, he’ll have to turn back.”

  “Why?” Hunter asked.

  “Because creatures of the Dark Realm cannot abide the Light, any more than vice versa. Even now, he no doubt feels like he’s got himself a belly full of angry eels.”

  “How do you know it’s a he?” Cassie asked, holding Liz’s hand as they walked. The dolls walked now on either side of her like fierce little bodyguards, their short legs somehow keeping up with miraculous ease. Stewart could hardly peel his gaze from the way they moved, so unnatural and natural at the same time. Never mind the fact that until a couple of hours ago, he thought they were actually dolls. What they were, he didn’t know, but they certainly weren’t dolls.

  “Because dark elves,” Bob said with a shudder, “they’re all boys.”

  “That’s strange,” Liz said. “Why are they all boys?”

  A horrified look bloomed on Bob’s face. “Ye don’t really want to know, do ye? In front of the wee ones?”

  Liz cleared her throat. “I suppose not.”

  The relief on Bob’s face was plain, as if he hated even thinking about it.

  “Can you change your shape to whatever you want?” Hunter asked.

  “For the better part, aye, as long as ’tis something me own size. ’Tis like dressing up for All Hallows Eve every day. Do ye like All Hallows Eve, me boy?”

  Hunter nodded. “You mean Halloween? I love dressing up and trick-or-treating.”

  Bob winked again. “Ye might call me the ‘trick’ in that arrangement.”

  As they walked, Stewart’s mind wandered the crystal-clear shards of his savage dream that had somehow crossed over into his waking world, and the wreckage he might have made of his life and his family if they had not awakened him. He felt incredibly lucky that he had not hurt Cassie, only scared her. If that kind of trust was ever destroyed, it was nearly impossible to rebuild it. He had just missed falling into an abyss he hadn’t known was there.

  After an hour’s walking, though, Cassie started to complain. “Mommy, I’m so tired.” So Liz picked her up and carried her, backpack and all.

  The same fatigue was plain on Hunter’s face, so Stewart offered to carry him, too.

  “No, Dad, I can do it,” the boy said, his face full of determination.

  Within minutes Cassie had fallen asleep in Liz’s arms. Hunter trudged onward doggedly. They traveled in silence, keeping their eyes open and ears sharp for trouble. With short rests every hour or so, they kept going through the night, thankful for the mostly downhill path.

  On one of these rests, Liz left Cassie propped against Hunter, the two dolls standing sentinel at their feet, then she took Stewart by the arm and led him a short distance away. “We need to talk,” she said, her face determined and worried in equal measure.

  They sat on a boulder at the river’s edge.

  He took a deep breath, feeling like his body weighed a thousand pounds. “I’m so sorry. I don’t even know what I did, but the thought of hurting you or the kids makes me want to throw up.”

  “You don’t remember anything?”

  “I remember awful, awful dreams, fighting, rage, and then waking up in a choke hold by a doll.”

  “It started out you were tossing and turning, moaning in your sleep. You were all over the place. But then the moaning turned into something else, almost an animal growl, and then this evil laugh, and then you were tearing up the grass. You woke up the kids. They tried to wake you up, but you grabbed Cassie by the shirt.”

  “It was an accident!” he said in a cracked hush.

  “Yeah, you were just grasping for whatever was there, but she got too close, and you were swinging your arms around and you’re so strong that she almost stumbled into the fire pit. All of us were terrified. It still scares me to think about it.”

  He rubbed his face, his eyes, wishing the images from the dream were not still lurking behind his eyelids. “I’m so sorry.” He wanted to say It wasn’t me! But that would have been a lie.

  She looked at him for a long moment, searching, frowning. “The thing is, it was so...so mean, so brutal, like a rabid animal ready to kill anything that got close, no matter who or what.”

  “That’s how the dream was.” He couldn’t hold his voice steady. “I wish I could change it.”

  “I’ve never seen any of that from you before. When we started dating, I heard stories about your past, but I didn’t know what to believe. I just thought you were a cute, kind, misunderstood guy who was getting a bad rap. But over the years, I’ve come to know you well enough to know something is lurking in there, something you control with an iron leash.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that stuff. I had to leave it behind. I was happy to. I needed to.”

  “But maybe you haven’t dealt with it. Maybe you just stuffed it all, and it’s been deep down inside festering this whole time.”

  He couldn’t look at her, this goddess who inexplicably loved him. The urge plowed into him to run into the forest and disappear so he could never hurt or frighten them again.

  She put a warm hand on his, and that touch broke the dam of emotion. Tears filled his eyes, and his breath caught, because he didn’t deserve the kindness. He deserved to be locked up, put in a straight-jacket in a deep hole, and forgotten. How could he have been so stupid as to think he deserved someone like her? Like the kids?

  For a while, she just held his hand while the waves of despair and guilt washed through him.

  “Did you...?” He faltered, unable to bring himself to ask the question.

  She squeezed his hand gently and waited for him to gather the strength to say the words.

  “Did you ever think...even for a second...that I could do that on purpose?”

  Tears glistened as she leaned in and kissed his forehead. “Not for a second.”

  He pulled her close, buried his face in her hair, and let the tears come.

  Part III

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The long walk into dawn was not the most arduous travel of Stewart’s life, but the difficulty grew with every step he took, almost as if he was fighting against himself. His stomach clenched, but it wasn’t fear or hunger, more a vague unease.

  The rising sun warmed his face, a
wonderful sensation after a night of chill and fear.

  As the sun prepared to crest the distant mountain peaks, its rays painted the sky the most brilliant colors he had ever seen, so many that he couldn’t name them, couldn’t recognize them. The colors painted streamers of cloud into scraps of rainbow.

  It brought them all to a halt.

  “We’re leaving the Borderlands,” Bob said, releasing a deep breath and smiling. “’Tis good to be home.”

  In the burgeoning light, Stewart noticed the trail had changed texture. It was no longer simple, hard-packed earth and pebbles. A more regular texture emerged from the earth, too small for cobblestones, with a feel that it was...organic. The closest thing he could liken it to was ray skin, the pale, scaly leather he had sometimes used to cover knife handles, but here at a larger scale. The scales were maybe the size of silver dollars. Before he could stop to consider whether this trail was fashioned of the skin of some gigantic creature, the sun broke the horizon, spilling brilliance over everything.

  “Oh, wow,” Liz breathed.

  The kids froze in slack-jawed amazement.

  The landscape exploded with colors so vibrant, so intense, they hurt Stewart’s eyes. In this fresh sunrise, the feet of the redwoods were swathed in wildflowers. The river turned a cerulean blue he’d never seen before. The thick bark of the massive redwoods flourished in lush reds and browns and ochers, the canopy above sparkling with emerald. The sunlight brought life to all those creatures living up there, and a profusion of them sprang into the air, a kaleidoscope of wings.

  The landscape revealed a splendor of misty waterfalls and lush grottoes.

  And it all jammed an ache into his heart.

  It was too much.

  He didn’t deserve to be here. Not after what he’d almost done to his daughter just a few hours before, after what he’d wanted to do to all the people who’d ever tormented him. His belly squirmed.

  He had sunk to one knee, he realized, when Liz came up to him. “Are you okay?”

  When he looked up at her, he gasped in wonder. She drew back at his surprise. “What? What is it?”

  In that moment, she was the most beautiful he’d ever seen her. Not even their wedding day could compare to the vision who stood before him. Her brown eyes dark and soft as a doe’s. Her tousled hair like spun gold dipped in honey. Her cheeks as soft as the petals of a rose. It was as if she glowed from within, as if the sunlight had awakened something that was already there, and now it was spilling out of her and taking his breath away.

  She blushed and glanced away. “What?”

  His mouth wouldn’t work well enough to answer.

  “What’s the matter, Daddy?” Cassie said, rubbing her eyes with tiredness.

  Stewart could only stare. The same was true of his baby girl. The same magic that imbued Liz turned Cassie into the sweetest cherub, so beautiful and wise she belonged in a Renaissance painting. He half-expected to see her produce a lyre and wings to sprout out of her back.

  Hunter looked like a little Peter Pan, at once fierce and kind and alert, a young man who mixed compassion with courage, who would grow up to be someone like Robin Hood, a protector of the weak and a scourge of the corrupt. Stewart felt such pride in him in that moment that he wanted to shout to the universe This is my family!

  He struggled to wet his mouth enough to speak. Finally, he managed, “You all look...amazing!”

  The three of them looked confused, until they looked at each other.

  “Mommy, you’re so pretty!” Cassie said.

  Liz blushed deeper. “Thank you, baby, but I feel just the same... Well, maybe not...” She looked at her hands and arms. She turned to Bob. “Something’s happening. I feel...really good.”

  Bob gave her a wise look. “That’s the Source. We’re crossing over, and its power is flowing through you at full strength now.”

  “But what about Dad?” Hunter said. “Dad doesn’t look so good.”

  Stewart might have been offended if his son wasn’t correct. All around him, he felt the invisible flow of something—he had to call it magic—an intensely creative force. But it wasn’t flowing through him. He felt like a river boulder, getting wet but only parting the flow as it swirled around him.

  Bob stared deep into him. “The fingers of the dark elf linger in yer mind, laddie. Look at yer hands.”

  Stewart gasped to discover they looked ill defined, as if he could see through his fingers, his skin translucent at the edges. “What’s happening?”

  “The dark elf’s touch awakened something in you,” Bob said. “The Dark side is all about destruction, disruption, corruption. The Light side creates, the Dark side destroys and corrupts. I daresay you’re feeling a fresh penchant for mayhem?”

  Stewart didn’t want to, but he nodded.

  “Them that walk the Dark path can’t come to the Source, and vice versa,” Bob said. “A bright enough light banishes all shadows. A dark enough shadow can douse a light.”

  Liz’s voice rose. “So, you’re saying he can’t even be here?” She grabbed Stewart’s hand protectively. Where she touched him, corporeality spread through his flesh.

  “Not exactly,” Bob said. He gestured at Stewart’s hand, which looked more solid now. “As ye can see, yer presence helps keep his internal Darkness at bay.”

  The kids crowded around him, laid their hands on him. Almost instantly, Stewart felt better, as if the ground under him had solidified, as if his flesh had solidified. The snakes in his belly stopped writhing.

  He hugged all three of them to him, more grateful than he had ever been.

  When he let them go, he said to Bob, “So am I in danger of falling back into the real world?”

  “If ye mean yer world, the Penumbra, then aye, it is possible. But I think the Dark Lord’s power can’t reach ye here. Ye’ve only the darkness ye toted along.”

  “Could I come back?”

  “Clear the Darkness out of yer soul and aye, ye could return. But that’s not an easy thing. Been there a long time, it has.”

  “Don’t let that happen, Daddy!” Cassie said tearfully.

  “I won’t, baby,” he said, stroking her hair. “I feel better now. I have you.” He hugged Hunter again, too. “All of you.”

  “Let’s shake an expeditious leg, shall we?” Bob said. “There’s folks waiting on us.”

  As they all started down the path again, Stewart asked, “Who’s waiting for us?”

  “I’ll be letting them introduce their own selves,” Bob said.

  “So your side, the Light side, brought me here for a reason,” Stewart said. “If I’m so Dark on the inside I can barely stay here, why bring me at all?” He couldn’t bring himself to ask, Am I dangerous? He already knew the answer to that question.

  Bob paused before replying. “Them that knows, it’s for them to say.”

  “I thought you were supposed to answer questions,” Stewart said.

  Bob just sniffed and kept walking—or jogging, rather. His short legs had to move at triple speed to keep up with Stewart’s long stride.

  The two dolls skipped along like tiny schoolchildren on either side of Cassie. Stewart shook his head at the weirdness of it.

  “Oh, no! Dad, look out!” Hunter stopped and pointed. “It followed us!” An enormous hulking shape emerged from the dense flowering shrubs across the river. It could leap over the water and be upon them in an instant.

  The giant grizzly bear’s coat of many colors let it blend in with its surroundings almost perfectly, but a creature half the size of the family’s trailer house was not particularly stealthy.

  Bob waved genially at the bear.

  The bear paused and waved back with a paw the size of a truck tire.

  “Oh, you’re kidding,” Stewart said. “That thing is on our side?”

  “Mighty fine goblin repellent, ain’t he?” Bob said.

  The bear made a scoffing noise, as if offended at having his role thus belittled.

  “Come
now,” Bob said, “we mustn’t dawdle.”

  Stewart stared, mesmerized at how the bear’s camouflage shifted so quickly, so precisely. At times, he almost lost sight of it, even though it walked in full view. “How much farther is it to where we’re going?”

  “That depends,” Bob said. “One thing ye must know about this land is that ’tis not really land. The journey is as much an internal one created by all of us, by all of our intentions and beliefs...” He gave Stewart a pointed look. “By our baggage.”

  “That’s really confusing,” Hunter said.

  “Stay here long enough, it’ll come to ye, me boy. Think of it as a journey inward as much as a long walk. In some ways, it only looks like we’re on a ramble.”

  “Not helping,” Hunter grumbled.

  ***

  Stewart didn’t know how long they walked because his sense of time diminished.

  What he knew was that there were unicorns.

  But not horse-sized unicorns. The size of them fell between the size of goats and horses, like a small, spindly pony, but no less beautiful for their unexpected size. They grazed in verdant glades among bursts of wildflowers, like alabaster statues imbued with movement. Their horns caught the sunlight like diamonds. Winged creatures flitted among them, which Stewart thought to be insects at first, with wings like dragonflies.

  But then a unicorn meandered close enough for him to see one of the winged creatures land on the unicorn’s back. It was, in fact, a tiny, human-like shape with wings like a dragonfly’s, sage-green skin, and hair in rainbow hues. The creature grabbed onto the unicorn’s hair and stretched out to sun itself.

  “Look, Mommy! Little people!” Cassie pointed at them.

  “I beg your pardon!” Bob said with great indignation. “Those are pixies! Quite wonderful they are, in their own way, but they are, shall we say, like comparing monkeys to humans.”

  “But they’re so cute!” Cassie said with a giggle.

  On down the uphill-flowing river, into a valley so broad the far side was only barely visible through the mists of distance, they continued on their way.