by Стив Хиллард
In Cadence’s dream, it was the proverbial three in the morning. Her father was at the top of one of the support tower ladders, connecting the lighting cables to the copper rings at the hub. The whole trembling exoskeleton was held together with spliced, crimped, and frayed support cables; stripped bolts; and big steel bars hammered into place but lacking the cotter pins that could insure they wouldn’t slip out. The Ferris Wheel was a big creaking disaster waiting to happen. Moms and dads would, that very day entrust their children to the swinging gondolas, gaily dangling a hundred feet up in the air.
Standing in the center of the wheel, sixty feet above ground, Arnie Grande felt strangely apart from the others. The work lights below made everything either blinding white or opaquely shadowed. But one of the lights suddenly went out and he could suddenly see everything in surprising detail: trucks like toys, people milling about … and there he saw his father, Cadence’s grandfather, the Scissor Sharpener himself. A man Arnie had last seen five years before, when he was sixteen. The man was walking away from him along the midway. There was no mistaking him, with his old fedora, his valise with the leather shoulder strap, and his solid, steady gait etched into place by years of walking, walking, walking.
Arnie Grande yelled, screamed, and pointed, but no one could hear or cared to see. For just a moment, the man below seemed to pause, as if he thought he heard something, but then kept walking. Arnie tried to keep him in sight. He last glimpsed the man stepping between partially unloaded trucks.
Arnie shot down the tower ladder and hit the ground running. Where’d he go? He ran desperately, zigzagging around the garishly painted horses, swans, and camels that lay like victims of an improbable massacre beside the eerily naked Merry-Go-Round.
The sludgy movement of dreams took over, and the horrible truth emerged: his father never even heard him, and was gone.
She splashed water on her face and looked at her reflection again. It was beat up, but still looking straight in.
Looking at herself, she felt certain there was a misweave in her own tapestry. If only she could but undo the knots and pick out the errant weft and reweave it all into sensible order. If only she could but find the careless hand that moved the shuttle. Yes, her grandfather. Jess was out there. She would find him. Perhaps in a place of refuge, candled window light spreading out to greet her. They would talk dispassionately about life’s hows and whys and she would understand how to set the order of things.
But to find him, if ever, she faced a chartless reckoning. Save for a few clues, she stared, at a whited map. The documents and a reference to New York City on a note from Professor Tolkien were about all she had to go on. In maps of old, such unfilled regions were wastes where monsters thrived.
No matter. Mel’s backhanded encouragement had spawned the idea of taking a trip. She could make it happen or just slink away and surrender.
She searched for the Borunda handbag, wondering if her one unrevoked credit card would finally just dissolve this time, like some prop from Mission: Impossible.
She fished out the credit card and called to check the balance. There was two hundred left on the credit line — not enough. She remembered a clutter of papers on the roll-top desk. She rushed to it, rifling through slots filled with junk. She found a drawerful of aging bills, shocking in number and combustible in their yellowed brittleness. Finally, she found the envelope with the AMTRAK logo, just as she remembered. It was a voucher for travel to Anywhere, USA. She scanned the fine print until she got to the expiration date. She stared at it like it might change.
She swept it up with poetic flourish and sat down with her computer, Googling for AMTRAK.
She made the reservation and organized her bags. The valise, all the documents, the few clues to her grandfather, these would go with her. The rest was incidental. One backpack and a roller bag held all the overflow.
Standing there at that unexpected, six in the morning, deep-breath moment, she wondered what Ara would do. Would she have embarked on this sudden and uncertain journey? Cadence sat down and opened the valise and pulled out one of the scrolls. She unrolled it and looked at an expanse of sweeping, rune-like writings, as unintelligible as the fissured bark of trees — trees that might once have stood in the trackless depths of ancient Mirkwood itself. Scanning rapidly down the scroll, she came across annotations in antiquated English written in a tremulous hand. Etched on the thin leather, next to the runic language, was the now familiar riddle:
Cast in truth, stolen early
Hidden well from yearning eyes
Bears the tale of Ara’s role
Thieved by hands that shun them all
Another turn and a couple of loose pages un-spiraled from their hiding place in the scroll. They were well presented, carefully penned, and readable. She sat down and began to read out loud: “It was, Oruntuft said, a time of great—”
“Haste!” cried the Bearer. The hoof beats of warhorses, powerful and relentless, were already upon the road as it turned from the village gatehouse.
A ragged, chill dawn greeted them. They stood in the lane before the inn, confused, swords drawn, a pale light, like red forge-flames, suffusing their razor-sharp blades.
The Woodsman knelt down and examined the hoof prints. “Steel shorn, with a great point in the front. Only the steeds of the Wraiths,” he spat, took a breath forced upon him by fear, and continued, “have … have their hooves armed such, and bear these runes and tri-faceted nailheads.”
The halflings looked down at the print, saw in its relief the cruel pattern.
One of them turned and gazed dazedly at the east. Another bent over, looking at more hoof prints. The Bearer stood still, closed his eyes, and smelled the terrible reality of this new day. He could feel the raw edge of his life sundered forever from his past. His faithful friend hovered near, looking about with sword in hand, fearful and vicious at the same time. How dare they!
If any others watched — and there were some, both evil and fair — the halflings, with the Woodsman kneeling nearby, were painted in stark tableau. The light of this morning was harsh and unforgiving, casting their faces and clothes in orange and purple. They were wrought in brilliant hues upon a break-of-dawn canvas of deep, textured grey. In the background, the ruined East Gatehouse, now a pyre of fire and smoke, lent a mocking counterpoint.
“Where is she?” he asked to the air about him.
As always, the other halflings hesitated.
“Are there others of your company?” interrupted the Woodsman. “Speak now! We must stay together or perish by the swords of these enemies one at a time. Have you no loyalty?”
The Bearer looked to the gate. “She insisted on staying there.” he said, pointing. The gatehouse was ablaze now, the barriers broken and cast down. A plume of smoke, pink and grey, rose into the lightening sky. The air smelled of smoke.
At that moment, the innkeeper came running up, all sweat and terror, and began to ramble between gasps for breath. “They … took her … grabbed her … up … like a doll”
The Bearer grew still, and then sank to his knees. He pulled his small sword where he fell, and double-handed, stuck it deep into the earth.
The harsh judgment of the wizard—“Do not take this woman!”—echoed in his ears. Why had he not paid heed? He listened again to the now hollow wisdom that had guided him — that Ara, alone among the halflings, knew from experience the woods and Outlands. That she alone possessed the conviction and resources to guide them through the world they were about to venture into. A world beset by war and the conflicts of wizards, men, elves, dwarves, orcs, perhaps even the six-armed brudarks.
Whatever he might say to please the wizard or his dear cousin, how could he, a normal, perpetually hungry halfling, deal with such demands? And so he had chosen Ara to accompany them, to be his confidante and resource. He had even shown her … it.
A lie, he thought, why did I think that?
I even let her keep it, if just for a moment.
A
nd now she is gone.
He looked up. The dawn’s chill raced and swirled about them. They had left their homeland, and everything it had meant, forever. This new day contained creatures of terrible power, creatures whose greatest passion (or, at least, greatest command) was to kill them.
An eddy of dust filled his nostrils. Bitter. It was a taste little known to halflings. The Bearer, for perhaps the first time in his young life, tasted the bile of despair, borne out of the certainty of a long journey ahead that had now gone very bad from the beginning.
The Woodsman rose up. The same morning chill brought the approach of autumn to his nostrils. Despair he also knew but seldom acknowledged. So ingrained was it in his being after those many years that he bore it like a battle scar from the long past.
The ruby red and deep gold leaves of fall in the northlands swept about them, chattering down the lane in a current indifferent to the cares of mortals.
Going on to nowhere.
Like us, thought the Bearer.
At dawn, Cadence paused one last time in the Forest, standing in the small screened-in porch that had served as her grandfather’s bedroom. Everything was in order. Slanted light played through the creek side oak trees at the back of the building, splaying in odd patterns on the bed like a waving sea fan, highlighting squares of cloth cut from gentlemen’s suits, pajamas, blue jeans, all stitched together in a frayed depression-era quilt. An heirloom, perhaps? A forgotten pattern to forgotten family ties?
On the chest of drawers, next to an old leather jewelry box bearing someone else’s initials, stood the only thing in the room that didn’t look second-hand. It was a faded picture in a wooden frame, probably from J.C. Penny’s or Sears or some other department store photo emporium. As always, Cadence picked it up and studied the subjects. Posed against a stock blue-neutral backdrop, they stared out at her with startling familiarity. It was hard to believe, but there it was, frozen in an incongruous moment as rare as an alignment of stars: her mom Helen, her dad Arnie, and a baby with a pacifier.
In the distance, another world away, she heard a dog barking and a car horn honking out on the road. Time to go. She put the photo back in the same spot and re-hefted her bags.
She hurried through the dimness of the Forest, squeezing along the tight aisles of comic books and retro psychedelic T-shirts. She thought about the police tape and fingerprint dustings, now long gone. It had annoyed her they had left that for her to clean up, but she did and kept everything else intact. On her way through the kitchen in back, she stopped for a final look. On the calico-covered kitchen table, the Abbott and Costello salt-and-pepper shakers stood waiting. So were the mint-condition, boxed Barbies her grandfather might have bought at a yard sale along with miscellaneous collectables, and vintage rock band posters. Banjo Dog had not further strayed from his post. She knew fine dust would settle over all, impossible to stop since it incessantly seeped in from the road.
She sighed as she surveyed the clutter, wondering if the trip she was about to take had an end point.
She checked the lock on the back door and then checked her cell phone for messages. There were two. She punched them up.
“Cadence, Megan. So, I know you say you don’t believe in luck or fairy tales. Well, I’m telling you, missy, I’m counting right now five thousand dollars I won at Vegas! The trip you didn’t want to go with us on Friday? So don’t be a stick in the mud, and let’s go together. All of us girls. Like soon! Let you cut loose and try that old time gospel mystery of the slots. Oh yeah, you won’t believe what else happened! Don’t you not call! Bye.”
The second one was from Mel. “Listen Cadence, I got your e-mail from last night. If you’re going there OK, I’ll help you. Go to the Algonquin Hotel, mid-town. A-L-G-A … anyway, you’ll find it. I’ll make arrangements. Now look, I’ve been scratching my head over this whole thing. I’ve been talking to some of my people, and well, there’s more here than I thought. I’m having research done. In the meantime keep this secret, all right? I suggest you leave the documents with me for safekeeping. At least take them with you. I’ll call as soon as I can.”
She saved both messages, sidled down a cramped aisle to the front of the store, and backed out the front door. The air, already giving up its moisture, felt tired and reheated. A morning bee droned somewhere along with the growing road sounds. Cars clipped by every few seconds. The keys jangled in her hand as she worked the troublesome deadbolt.
“You fear a trial of fire!”
The voice came from nowhere. Not sure if she heard it right, she froze, her hand still holding the key. Then she heard the rumble of a low growl, like a heavy gauge spring being compressed to the point of powerful, uncontrollable release.
She whirled around. A black dog faced her. If it was a dog. It looked pure Pleistocene, the kind of wolfish creature that lurked outside the glow of a Neanderthal campfire. Its long, black fur stood on end as if electrified. Huge, yellow teeth curved like arthritic fingers below yellow-pitted, greenish demon eyes.
Where’s the leash? some part of her mind questioned.
It stopped growling just long enough to breathe, and when it did, saliva roped down its impossibly long red tongue to muddy the dust at its feet. It took a step forward. She tensed, slowly bringing her bags around in front of her. Their eyes locked in stares, no question about who was prey.
Another step forward.
“Docga! Heel!”
The dog stopped mid-step, its eyes unwavering as its master appeared at its side. “It’s OK,” the man said. “He’s never attacked anyone when I’m here.”
Somehow that wasn’t reassuring.
The man seemed at first glance to be a typical Topanga creeker. Black T-shirt. Dirty jeans. Sandles. Black beard and hair. Druggie lean. The kind of man you’d see living in a tent or under one of the rock outcroppings just below town.
He looked directly at her and said the oddest thing, “Beware, Graymalkin. Your soul embarks ill-prepared for your need-fare.”
She was so surprised she laughed. “My what?”
“A journey that must be taken.”
“Who are you?”
“Never mind who I am. You will receive offers.”
“OK, get out of here.”
The man didn’t seem to hear. “Remember, on a journey one always faces temptations to abandon the path.”
“You’re crazy, go back down to the creek.”
“Each offer reveals that which you most desire.”
Now she listened. Not that she understood, but he had her at what you most desire.
“You’ve shipped many an oar I can see.”
“You know nothing of me.”
He paused, and then looked directly into her eyes. “The truth is, caterpillar, there’s not much about you worth knowing. At least not yet. Except for one thing.”
“How about my boyfriend comes out and kicks your ass.” Cadence was not above a bluff.
“Don’t you know that heroines are always orphans, in one sense or another?”
“That’s it. I’m going back inside and he’s gonna come out here and pound you good.”
“Attitude and loud talk can’t help you on this journey.”
She picked up a rock, and the dog leaned forward.
“You still don’t know what this is all about, do you, Cadence? Can’t you smell it? Change is coming. Like smoke borne in advance by a hot wind that propels the fire.”
She just looked at him, wondering how he could know to touch her fear of fire and say just that.
Having said his piece, he turned and walked away, whistling. The dog followed placidly at his side, tail doing happy puppy dog swishes as they moved away.
She knew of graymalkin, a malicious spirit in the form of a cat. It was the familiar of the first witch in Macbeth.
She also knew what time it was. No time, she thought, I’m late. Very late.
She picked up her bags, looked over at the parked and tarp-covered jaguar, and headed down the r
oad for the corner bus stop. The bus was there, the driver impatiently checking fares at the door.
The waiting, at least, was over.
When she finally got to Union Station in downtown L.A., only one ticket window was open and the line would not move.
Cadence was finally next in line, her packed roller bag attending like a faithful companion. There was a lot riding on this voucher. There was no name on it. Just the instructions: “Present to your Amtrak agent by …”
Her backpack was chafing her shoulders so she moved the straps a bit. She had stared at the ticket agent behind the security glass so long that she started composing his life story. How he ended up caught in this glass cage. It depressed her so much that she imagined she was not in the Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal at ten in the morning, but in the Getty Museum critiquing a modern art installation behind glass. Maybe one depicting the slow drowning part of hell. It would be titled Gray Tidal Slurry of Boredom.
“Next.”
She stepped up to the window, shoving the ticket voucher into the depressed slot.
The agent swept it up and placed it to his left for a quick study through his wire-framed spectacles. He wasn’t an old guy — just the first wee-sprouts of serious gray in his hair — yet he wore a green eye-shade and leather cuff-protectors, something she hadn’t seen outside of old movies of the thirties or forties.
He picked up the ticket, his finger running along the text. Puzzled, he turned it over, then found what he was looking for.
“This is five years old. Almost expired.”
“Yes. Almost.”
“Tomorrow, in fact.”
“Yes.”
“When do you want to travel?”
“Today. Now.”
He leaned back and looked at it more intently, as if it trying to detect some evidence of a crime. Unconvinced, he got up and spoke to a female supervisor. They talked. The supervisor looked at Cadence covertly, then walked over to the window.