by Bill Bunn
“I don’t want a lawyer.”
“What you tell me can be held against you—you know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Where are your aunt and uncle?” Larry pursued. “What have you done with them?”
“I don’t know where they are,” Steve protested. Larry’s eyes narrowed into furious little slits at Steve’s words. “Is this being recorded?” Steve asked.
“Yes. All interrogations are recorded.”
“I’m going to explain some things to you, and I think you’ll find them hard to believe.”
“Try me.”
“This situation is not what it appears to be.”
“Oh, really?” Sarcasm seemed to wake Larry up.
“My mom and Aunt Shannon weren’t kidnapped,” Steve declared. “They were accidentally transported to another world.” The attitude of the interview heated Steve up to fire-point inside his winter coat.
Larry laughed out loud. “Oh, that’s rich. Pure gold. Magicians, right? Magic wands? Muggles. Don’t tell me. Wait.” He slapped his hand on his forehead. “Voldemort did it.”
Larry stopped laughing suddenly and focused on Steve. “You don’t have any idea how serious this situation is, do you? You are implicated in a very serious crime. You could spend a good number of years in a detention center. Or worse. I could get your case moved to an adult court.” He paused and moved close to Steve. “Do not mess with me.”
“I’m not lying to you,” Steve said in a quiet, but frustrated tone. “You really don’t understand what’s going on here.”
“You can’t expect me to believe you, Steve,” Larry roared. “You’re just a two-bit punk. And you’re upsetting me. I am finding myself getting very angry.”
“It’s the truth,” Steve insisted clearly.
“You liar. What kind of yank do you think I am?” Larry growled, as he pounded his fist on the table in anger. “I’ve heard a lot of stories in my career, but this tops them all.”
Steve felt his own anger rising. A fist of anger smashed through his icy fear, but he didn’t speak.
“You’re stupid. You’re an absolute idiot. I can see why your mother left—she couldn’t stand you.”
Steve couldn’t take any more. “Shut up!”
Larry looked up at Steve with a thin grin.
“Let me show you something that will make your day, Detective Garner.”
Larry nodded, with a sardonic smile.
“Could you pass me my backpack?” Steve asked.
Larry pawed through the bag’s contents, pulling out three notebooks, the dictionary, the sturdy alarm clock, and Steve’s plaque, putting them on the table with a knot of socks and underwear. With a casual eye he inspected it until he was satisfied that there was no direct threat. Then he slid everything towards Steve.
“You’re not listening to me, are you?” Steve asked, indignantly.
“What do you think I am—an idiot? Have you forgotten to take your medication? Or, maybe your teenage hormones have addled your brain,” he snarled.
“Can you unlock my hands?” Steve asked angrily. “Let me show you what this stuff can do. The room’s already locked, so I won’t escape.”
“You’re an idiot, kid,” Larry retorted. Anger surged in Steve, and he fought to control it.
“Just let me try something, will you?”
“Actually, you’ll have to do it with the handcuffs, because I’m not going to undo them. You’d better get used to the feeling of cuffs. I have a feeling you’ll be wearing them often.” He folded his arms and stood defiantly against the wall. “Impress me.”
Steve raised his hands to hug the things on the table, and slid them close enough to where he was sitting that he could reach them more easily.
“What did you do to your hand?” Larry asked.
Steve had forgotten his injury, but he ignored Larry’s question. He slid one hand through the strap of his backpack, placing the three notebooks, the tiny tough-looking alarm clock, and his Benu stone inside the bag’s open mouth one at a time. And, finally, the underwear and socks.
“Where are you going?” Larry quipped with a laugh. “You look like you’re packing things up and leaving.”
“I am leaving,” Steve said matter-of-factly.
“Whatever,” Larry said in a bored tone.
Steve shook his head. He reached out and grabbed the plaque and the dictionary, one in each hand. The familiar warm, numbing electrical feeling rubberized each arm. The whirlwind of light started moving slowly around him.
Steve watched Larry’s eyes grow large. The policeman stood up where he sat, falling backward over the battered back of the chair. He crawled backward over the floor toward the far wall. Steve found himself smiling.
“Help!” Larry screamed.
A wind blew around the interrogation room, the file flew open and pages of the case circled madly around the room in a tornado-shaped funnel. Larry’s face twisted with dread, as he thrashed against the wall, trying to dig his way out of the room, thrashing against it. Fear froze his features with a look Steve had never seen before—on anyone’s face. Steve was enjoying the moment so much that he took a while to notice that the detective was fumbling for his gun. Larry eventually worked it out of his holster and fired wildly into the mayhem.
Steve ducked. The room grew flat, like a picture, and the picture shrunk to a small size. Steve checked himself for holes. The shots had apparently missed. The picture fell slowly to the ground and dissolved into nothing.
He was back in the World of Pieces. This time, however, the landscape wasn’t flat. He found himself in a valley of huge mountains, all dark, like polished glass. The sky was still filled with that before-dawn kind of light. He looked around nervously, waiting for the mask to appear.
He let go of the dictionary but continued to grip his Benu stone. With his free hand he wiggled his hand until he held the handcuffs firmly.
“Lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-lock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock-clock.” The tornado of light surrounded him and in another moment, two tiny clocks tumbled to the ground, joined by a chain.
He dropped his plaque back into his backpack. The handcuffs—now two small, tough-looking clocks—glinted on the ground. He couldn’t resist picking them up, tossing the clocks in his bag, too.
Now, where does a Duck Boy go in this world?
This time the mask didn’t appear; instead it was the face of his Aunt Shannon. Her face came together with a giant whoosh, ahead of him, blocking his progress.
“So you returned,” said the face with a snarl, and the voice was Aunt Shannon’s, too, but the face said words he knew he’d never hear from his aunt. “You disobedient child. You will listen to me. You gave them your life, Steve. They own you now. Give yourself up.”
Steve stepped towards the face of Aunt Shannon. “Do not go this way. You are standing on the rim of the Ocean of Pieces.”
Steve weighed the words of this apparition carefully.
The mask wants me away from the ocean.
Duck Boy. Duck Boy.
Steve fought the urge to leave. To get out. He hated water at the best of times, but this wasn’t even real water. It was worse.
But the mask. It was hiding something—something lurked behind it. Steve knew somehow that he had to face whatever was behind the mask. He bowed his head to summon strength.
Steve looked up and took a step towards the mask. Aunt Shannon’s face growled and transformed into the face of a wolf and snapped at him.
Steve stepped back to avoid the snap but then pushed himself forward—toward the face. “You cannot hurt me,” Steve shouted to the wolf image. “You’re a ghost.” He walked towards the wolf’s snarl and passed right through the face. The wolf’s face disintegrated and reformed in front of him. Steve realized that the mask was trying to defend something.
If I walk toward the mask, I’ll find what it’s trying to keep me away from.
His new plan offered him courage,
and he picked up his step. The wolf mask morphed into a decomposing human skull. He walked through the skull. As he continued to walk, a host of ghostly images began moving towards him and over him. The faces of classmates, teachers like Mr. Pollock, his relatives, interspersed with body parts, horrible scenes, disgusting manifestations, furniture, and familiar things hurtled at him at incredible speeds. It became difficult to see as these ghostly images swept past him in a blizzard.
“It’s just a blizzard,” he told himself. Though he didn’t want to, he kept his eyes open, making sure he faced the onslaught directly.
He walked slowly and occasionally stopped and closed his eyes to shut out the haunting torrent of images. When he regained his composure and his courage, he would open his eyes and continue on again.
Suddenly, the ghostly images disappeared. Steve found himself alone, standing a few feet away from place similar to the scene in his last visit—the Ocean of Pieces. It looked different this time. Waves broke out in no particular pattern, like something or someone was swimming in the middle of it. He walked over to the edge and knelt down, sweeping his hand through what looked like water. It wasn’t water: it was nothing but a ghostly puddle.
This is the ocean, Steve thought. So what do I do now?
My Benu stone.
He pulled it out of his backpack and held it out towards the Ocean of Pieces. The plaque shimmered in his hand. Nothing happened. Steve waved it over the surface of the ocean, being careful not to drop it. Nothing.
Steve replaced his Benu stone in his bag and sat down cross-legged at the edge to think about what might work, and what this place offered him. He remembered how he had traveled here, and how the mask had shown him how to speak a word and the object would appear.
Words… it’s words that make this world work, he thought. Maybe this is a place of words.
He clutched his Benu stone and spoke to the ocean: “Gold.” He let go of his Benu stone, let it slide back into the depths of his backpack. What looked like mist rose from the ocean and traveled over to where he was standing, formed a cloud and dropped like a rock before him. He bent towards it and his hand passed through the chunk of gold—it was the spirit of gold.
He thought a bit. And as an experiment, he pulled out his Benu stone again, held it in one hand, and reached for the gold with the other. He bent forward and picked up the chunk of gold. This time it looked and felt real enough. He picked it up and threw it back into the ocean. The gold puffed as it hit the ocean’s surface and burst into a small cloud of fragments disappearing beneath the surface. After a little more thought, he came up with his next experiment.
“Aunt Shannon,” Steve yelled at the ocean. Aunt Shannon seemed like the best choice in the situation. He had no idea what he might expect. From nether regions of the ocean, mist came together and hundreds of women of all ages materialized over the water’s surface and began to float toward the shore. They lined up along the shore in a perfect line.
“Crap!” A brown pile of dog poo appeared on the shore. “Oh!” said Steve with some surprise.
The people weren’t alive. They were just hollow shells—houses without occupants. Benu stone in hand, he pushed the closest body back into the ocean, and when it hit the surface it vaporized.The dog poo woofed into a small cloud and dove back into the ocean.
“Be more specific?” Steve whispered to himself. “Shannon Riley Pankratz, born 1929 in London, England,” he screamed into the boiling waters. The rest of the group of women evaporated into mist and retracted into the ocean. A single form assembled and congealed in front of him. It was his Great Aunt Shannon.
She had a vacant look on her face. Steve inspected her form for damage. Her body seemed perfectly fine. Like the others, she had no life in her, and as she stood there he wondered what he needed to do. He reached out to touch his great aunt, and his hand moved through her arm as if she were a cloud.
“Oh, yeah,” Steve muttered to himself. He stuck his hand into his backpack and touched his stone. Reached out for Aunt Shannon again, and this time her arm became flesh. But, her skin was cold and clammy—lifeless.
“Aunt Shannon,” Steve called, addressing the empty body of his great aunt. The ocean behind her rumbled, as if an earthquake had hit it. Her eyes looked empty. Aunt Shannon’s body had returned, but her life hadn’t.
“OK,” Steve muttered to himself, “step one worked. What would step two be?”
Steve couldn’t think of how to wake her up. His own Benu stone didn’t seem to be working. Aunt Shannon’s body stood motionless as Steve tried different combinations of things to try to wake her up, but nothing worked.
The ocean behind her began to rock frantically, boiling as if something were about to explode from within its surface. The ground beneath his feet began to shake as if something huge were about to rise out of the ocean. Steve panicked. He lost his focus and abandoned the experiment, wondering what might be happening next.
Duck Boy. Duck Boy.
Aunt Shannon stood motionless and lifeless on the edge of the ocean as it raged behind her. Fear overcame Steve and he turned from the ocean and began to run.
Steve ran for cover, but there was nowhere to go. He looked back towards the ocean. Aunt Shannon’s body stood at attention, alone.
He was thinking about returning to his great aunt’s side when the ocean’s surface broke open and several items spouted out from within the depths. In a pang of terror, he plunged his hands into his bag and grabbed his notebook and the plaque.
Aunt Shannon and the rest of that world flattened into a picture. She looked lonely as she stood there. The picture shrunk and floated to the floor. He was at his house again. He ran to a window and searched the front street.
The cops aren’t here. I wonder if the guy is still in the attic.
As he looked out a window, he noticed that the snowstorm was beginning to subside. He replaced the plaque and his notebook in the backpack. The interior house glowed with a sick morning light, reflecting off the snow. But Steve didn’t notice. Though his winter coat still hung over his shoulders, he felt a deep frost.
Duck Boy. Duck Boy.
He gasped for air to recapture the breath that fear had squeezed out of him. The image of Aunt Shannon’s empty body, standing all alone. Another failure.
What a loser. I’m a total wimp.
Depressed, he went to his room quietly and lay down to think. On the verge of sleep, Steve decided that before he ended up in another difficult situation, he should record all of his previous experiments. So he sat down and scribbled them all out quickly, using the frail morning light for illumination.
Once he finished recording his experiments, a sick feeling knotted his gut. He had left his great aunt in danger and had run for safety. His anger simmered as he considered how he’d just acted.
I’m tired of being a loser.
His anger with himself pushed the feelings of fatigue and panic outside the perimeter.
I’m going back to rescue her.
He shoved his hands angrily into his backpack, grabbing the dictionary with one hand and his plaque with the other. The light enveloped him and whisked him back to the World of Pieces.
When Steve returned, the landscape was transforming and changing every few seconds. He watched rolling hills grow and cut into the air as they transformed into sharp peaks, and then retract to the earth and turn to plains.
“Aunt Shannon,” Steve screamed into the ocean across the landscape. Nothing. “Shannon Riley Pankratz who was born January 19th, 1929, in London, England.”
Nothing.
Maybe I have to speak into the ocean. How am I going to find my way back there?
“Mask!” Steve shouted hoping that the mask would reappear in front of him and lead him to the ocean. This time, nothing—no mask appeared. Steve hoped that the Ocean of Pieces couldn’t be very far, so he struck in a direction that seemed right. Wherever he stepped, the shifting landscape became still, supporting his foot. But shifting shapes
prevented him from gaining any sense of where he was. He walked a fair distance, but there seemed no end to the landscape; it went on forever. Nothing seemed to be the way it was when he found Aunt Shannon.
“How could I have been such a wimp?” Steve growled to himself. “I’ll probably never find her again.” He sat on the ground, drowning in self-pity.
The landscape had the feeling of a shopping mall without the stores. The waving horizon looked kind of funky. And as long as the mask stayed away, there weren’t any annoying salespeople, either.
It just needs some Muzak, something to liven up the dead air in here.
Steve lay on the ground and set his head down on a soft part of the bag. As he shut his eyes, his mind moved from his surroundings back to his own troubles.
If I had to live here, it’d be OK. It isn’t ugly, and it isn’t pretty, kind of like most neighborhoods. I’d just have to get the ground to stay in one place.
“It’d be OK,” he said aloud. “Not like I’d be missed much.”
Duck Boy. Duck Boy.
As he heard those mocking words echo in his mind, Steve turned his thoughts in another direction.
I’m still probably the only one who can bring Aunt Shannon home.
He sat up abruptly.
“Why am I ready to fall asleep here again? When I fell asleep the last time, I lost my little finger.”
Steve jumped up and snatched his backpack.
This is no time to sleep.
He ambled for several minutes through the shifting landscape when he heard grumbling and rumbling, like a giant case of indigestion. He listened carefully to determine where the noise was coming from and turned toward it, walking for what felt like a half hour without getting any closer. Suddenly the entire horizon burst into flame.
He jumped back a few feet from the closest flames.
Run, Duck Boy.
There was something not quite right about the fire. For one thing, there was no smoke and no smell.
Not this time.
Steve forced himself to step closer and closer to the flames. He reached towards the fire and swept his hand through the flame. There was no heat. He knelt down and felt the edge of the ground near the base of the flame. The land dropped away into the fire. “The Ocean of Pieces,” Steve exclaimed.