Before You Go

by Tommy Butler

“I don’t know,” says my father. “Sometimes people imagine something one way and then realize later that the reality is different.”

  I want to protest. I want to tell him that the fort is exactly what I imagined it would be. No, that it’s even better. But it’s clear that my father doesn’t see it that way, that by “people” he means children—more specifically, me—and not himself. He was building a toolshed, not a fort in which we might have played together. My own ideas now seem laughable, and I’m embarrassed by them. My imagined fellowship with my father evaporates, a cloud formation that loses its shape just as you begin to pretend it is anything other than what it is—vaporous, untouchable, incapable of bearing the weight of even a small hope.

  “Look,” says my father, “it’s fine if you want to use it as a fort. If you want to put the window in, then we’ll put the window in.”

  “No. Forget it.” I look around the room—my father behind his newspaper, my mother rustling at the sink, Dean hunched over his cereal bowl. Everything is as normal as ever, and yet these people suddenly seem like strangers to me. Distant, cold, almost inert. My eyes—hot and wet—sink into my lap.

  “I’m going to put it in.” My father states this definitively, as if he’s the one who decides when conversations are over, and as if—once again—that’s the end of that one.

  “No,” I say. If you can cry without shedding tears, without allowing your body to shake, then that’s what I’m doing, a molten mass inside a frozen shell. “I don’t want you to.”

  “Okay,” says my father, “but don’t get all mopey, Elliot. You’ve got nothing to complain about and a million things to be thankful for. Nobody has time for one of your moods.”

  And that really is the end. Something in me is either stunned or killed outright. I’m not sure which. I stop crying, if crying is what I’d been doing. I stop talking. My breakfast is left unfinished. I spend the rest of the day on the back porch, gazing vaguely in the direction of the ring of stones, motionless until evening, when darkness doesn’t so much fall as collapse in exhaustion over the earth. The stars seem impossibly far away, and I realize I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to be in a world that is awake, with so much life and love in it that the people there need giant hearts to contain it all. I want to be in Neverene.

  I sneak out the back and over the wall into Esther’s yard. She catches me, despite the darkness. Part of me knew she would—maybe even hoped she would, though my destination is elsewhere.

  “If on a summer’s night a traveler—” she begins. I stop and wait for her to finish, but she doesn’t. She simply sits there as before, on the back patio, within her circle of lamplight.

  “What?” I ask.

  “What?” she says, playfully imitating me. “Are you not still a traveler? It’s a bit early for leprechauns.”

  Yes, I think to myself. I am a traveler. “I’m going to Neverene.”

  “Is that your really cool place?”

  I nod. “Do you think that’s weird?”

  She frowns slightly, as if this is a silly question. “I think if you find a place where you feel alive, you should spend as much time there as you can.”

  “What if that place is just a dream?”

  “One way or another everything is a dream.”

  “Not to my parents.”

  “It’s harder for grown-ups,” says Esther. “But even the most practical of us believe in magic, whether we want to admit it or not. Do your parents ever knock on wood?”

  I frown, unable to remember, and not bothering to try. “I lost the book. My mother took it away.”

  “I’m sorry,” says Esther. “I see you still have the anthracite.”

  I look down. In my hand is the Neverene stone, though I don’t remember taking it out. I shove it back into my pocket. “It’s just a piece of coal.”

  She laughs lightly. “Anthracite is coal,” she says. “What you call it is up to you. The names aren’t true. What’s true is the thing itself—and the fact that you see things one way, and other people see things in other ways.”

  “Or not at all.”

  Esther considers me for a moment, smiling as if she’s spotted someone she recognizes. “When I was little, my grandmother would never let me hug her. She didn’t like to be touched in that way. But she loved giving me foot rubs. She’d peel off my socks, plop my feet on her lap, and go to work. They tickled at first, but I came to love them, even if I never stopped wishing she would give me a hug.”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  Esther shrugs. “If you’re lucky, people will love you in the way they know how. And if you’re really lucky, the love they can give will be the love you need.”

  “What if it isn’t?”

  “Then I guess you’ll have to settle for just being lucky.”

  These seem like good thoughts, and I’m sure there is wisdom in them, but they don’t touch me. I am deep within the well now, and the words pass over like distant birds in a halo of irretrievable sky. I don’t even reach for them. I think only of getting away. To Neverene. Time and mind being what they are, I cannot know that this is the last I will ever see of Esther. If I could, maybe it would be different. Maybe it wouldn’t.

  I thank her, do my best to return her smile, and continue on toward the ring of stones. A gibbous moon sheds just enough light for me to find my way through the woods, until I’m kneeling in the dirt beside the old tree stump. I take out the black rock and rap it against the hard face of the stump, willing the stump to turn into a door and for that door to open. When there is no response, I grow fearful that I’ll never know the way to Neverene, and desperate enough to hazard a final guess.

  The crickets are caroling madly as I climb the beech tree and scramble out to the end of the long limb from where the twins released their potions. I stare down at the undergrowth until I can just make out the stump. Then I rise to my feet, balance for one precarious second, and jump. The fall is long and dark and heavy. As I strike the ground, I hear a loud, unnatural crack. In the last moment before the world fades, I allow myself to believe that it’s the sound of the earth, splitting open to reveal the passage out.

  I was wrong. If the doors between worlds make a noise when they open, I’m not aware of it. The crack I heard was the sound of my leg breaking—more specifically, the multiple fracture of my right tibia. It’s unclear whether it was the impact of the fall or the pain of the break that caused me to black out. Either way, I was still unconscious when my parents found me. The first doctor I saw after the incident was a surgeon in the emergency room later that night. He set the broken bone and encased my leg in plaster, but could do nothing for the constriction of my chest or the darkness at the corners of my vision, dismissing me with a pair of crutches.

  The second doctor now sits before my mother and me—or, rather, we sit before him. His office is both more casual and more insidious than the emergency room. More casual in its wood paneling and plush sofa and the doctor’s own attire of polo shirt and khakis. More insidious because, unlike at the emergency room, I don’t know why I’m here, except that my mother thought I should “talk” to someone, and that my father shouldn’t know about it. I am too defeated to point out the irony in this.

  Yet the doctor’s smile feels genuine, his voice calm and light, so much so that when he asks me to tell him about Neverene, I oblige, describing it as best I can. I even take the anthracite from my pocket and show it to him. When the tightness in my chest makes me short of breath, he waits patiently. And when I finally finish, he nods deeply, as if he understands.

  “And the monsters?” he asks.

  I hesitate, glancing at my mother, but she motions for me to continue. I describe the shade, and the fat burglar and the others. None of this seems to faze the doctor. He goes on, asking about my family, and school, and friends. I talk about Dean and leaf-catching and baseball and the twins.

  “Do you ever feel like you’re vanishing?” he asks. “Disappearing?”

 
; I suppose this would seem like a strange question if the answer was no. But I remember losing myself in the thunderstorm, and melting into the rhythm of pitching practice. I think of how the world faded away when I opened the book about Neverene.

  “Yes,” I respond.

  “Do you sometimes wish you were somewhere else?”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you want to go to Neverene?” He poses the question casually, generously, as if extending an invitation I’d been longing to receive. I see no reason to decline.

  “Yes.”

  The doctor nods again. He pauses, letting my answer linger for a moment before continuing. “Elliot,” he says, “you understand that Neverene isn’t real.”

  His words fall flat and heavy, no longer an invitation but a proclamation, a decree calling for only one acceptable response. The room turns, tightening the vice around my chest. The innocence and ease of the doctor’s questions now seem like tools of treachery along a subtle path of interrogation. I feel as if he’s lured me into a trap. If I agree with him, I destroy Neverene and the monsters. I banish the spirit in the thunderstorms, kill the giant with the giant heart. If I disagree, I will be outcast—cut off from my parents, my brother, even Esther. I feel like I’m being asked to build a wall where no wall needs to be. Unwilling or unable to answer, I fall silent.

  I am relegated to the waiting room while my mother stays behind to speak with the doctor. I can hear their hushed voices—my mother’s anxious and hurried, the doctor’s still calm but now ominous. The muffled syllables float in from his office, passing through like bubbles—unintelligible, and not meant for me.

  In the car, my mother struggles to collect herself. She seems scared. My better judgment tells me to leave her alone, but my anger and confusion win out.

  “What did he say?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” says my mother.

  “I don’t understand why we had to go there,” I say.

  “Because it’s time for you to stop with all these fantasy worlds.”

  I would ask why, but I’ve come to the conclusion that she doesn’t really have a reason. “But if you take those other worlds away, I’ll be left with just this one.”

  “Good,” says my mother. “It’s the only real one.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Excuse me?” Her voice grows sharp, but I ignore it. As if looking for support, I take the Neverene stone from my pocket.

  “You don’t know,” I say.

  “Give me that.” She holds out her hand. I hesitate. “Now!” she yells. I place the stone in her hand. She rolls down her window and throws it into the street. I fight back a howl.

  “Why did you do that?” I yell. “Now I’ll never—”

  “Never what?” she demands.

  “It’s real!” I say. My throat thickens until I feel like I’m choking. “All of it! The monsters, Neverene. Even Esther says so. She said if I want to go to Neverene, then I should go.”

  “Esther? The neighbor?” My mother’s knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “Since when is some lonely old divorcée qualified to give advice to other people’s children? You are never to speak to her again. Do you hear me? Never.”

  I am lost. My breath comes in a clipped staccato of weak gasps. I don’t know what else they can take away from me, and I can’t understand how it came to this. “I want to know what the doctor said.”

  “Nothing. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “Why can’t you just tell me what he said? Why can’t you just tell me one thing?”

  My mother reaches the end of her restraint. “He said you don’t really want to go to some fantasyland,” she says. Her eyes fill with tears. “He said you want to kill yourself.”

  Part II

  We will now discuss in a little more detail the Struggle for Existence.

  —Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

  Before

  “That’s a terrible idea,” says Jollis.

  “There’s nothing else for it,” says Merriam. She is tidying up the room in preparation for her departure—sweeping up stray bits of cloud, packing away the bottles of emotions, all now empty save the last.

  Jollis looks at the bare table at the center of the room. “What about the prototype? What if we stuff some—”

  “It’s too late,” says Merriam. “Each traveler’s empty space is unique. Only the travelers themselves will know what they need to fill it.”

  “Merry, you can’t just waltz down there and start granting wishes.”

  Merriam brightens a bit. “That’s it, Jollis. That’s what we’ll call it. The granting of wishes.” She appraises the room, nods in satisfaction, and moves to the window. She pulls back the curtain. The distant Earth shimmers in the frame.

  “You can kiss that promotion goodbye,” says Jollis.

  Merriam looks back at him. “I suppose you’re right.” She shrugs, then rises to the windowsill. “There’s nothing for that, either.”

  “Or worse,” cautions Jollis. “The brass won’t stand for it.” Though the brass are neither short-tempered nor unreasonable, when they get angry you know about it, and Jollis has a feeling this would make them angry.

  Merriam pauses. “You’re right,” she says. “I’ll need a disguise.”

  The genies are Merriam’s idea, as are the fairies (godmother, tooth, or otherwise), and the spirits of water and forest and sky. In truth, all of the disguises are Merriam’s idea. Jollis admires her virtuosity. His favorites are the leprechauns. He likes that they must be captured before they will grant a wish. Make the travelers work for it a little. Plus, Jollis looks good in green.

  Jollis goes with her, of course. He cannot let Merriam venture down there alone, even if her plan is beyond ill-advised, and even if she is the one who put the empty space there in the first place. The two of them don their guises and ramble the globe, moving nimbly and changing often to hide from the brass. They reside in lamps, or under bridges, or in the bark of trees or the banks of rivers. From mountaintop to dell, jungle to desert sand, from bygone hamlet to modern metropolis, Merriam and Jollis hear the wishes of humankind and make them come true. And it works! Merriam was right. Whether hopeful or desperate, people come to them longing—for something or somehow or some way—and depart fulfilled and happy. With every human smile of gratitude, or cry for joy, or sigh of relief, Merriam shines. Jollis is glad they came.

  Though, once within the bounds of time, Merriam and Jollis realize they don’t have enough of it. The sea of wishful humans seems endless—Caleb wants a bountiful harvest, Anahera a child, Jack a new car. Demand becomes so great that Merriam and Jollis devise other means of wish fulfillment, ones not requiring their presence. Travelers wish on shooting stars, on coins tossed into fountains. They pluck four-leaf clovers, fling fallen eyelashes, blow out the candles on their birthday cakes.

  Other complications arise. While many wishes are simple enough (most people simply ask for treasure in one form or another), others are vague or difficult to interpret. Katarina wants to be “beautiful.” Takeshi wants “revenge.” Still others are diametrically opposed to one another. If Obasi wishes to win the love of Babatunde’s wife, chances are Babatunde will wish to win it back. Even when they think they understand, Merriam and Jollis sometimes just get it wrong, or fail to anticipate the undesired repercussions of a wish fulfilled, leading a small collection of naysayers to disparage the whole process. “Be careful what you wish for,” they say. “You might get it.” Though this backlash upsets Merriam, it is no more than a faint eddy in a mighty river. The vast majority of travelers are enthralled by the granting of wishes, and Merriam and Jollis carry on, managing the challenges as they come.

  Until the addiction begins. Jollis is surprised when the first recidivist returns to them—a lovely woman who asked for beauty in her youth and got it. How elated she had been! Yet here she was, back again, with yet another wish. Discouraged but undaunted, Merriam grants it, and the wo
man departs, once more euphoric. Again and again, travelers whose wishes have been granted come back for more, until there seems no end to it—a second wish leads to a third, and a fourth, and so on. The time between fixes varies. Depending on the wish, and even more on the supplicant and the size of the empty space, a wish fulfilled will gratify different people for different lengths of time—anywhere from forty minutes to forty years, but rarely for a lifetime. Jollis begins to fear that no traveler will ever be sated, that it is not just the sea of wishful humans that is endless, but human craving itself.

  Merriam refuses to surrender. For her sake, Jollis perseveres, though they struggle to keep ahead of the swelling tide. The genies start granting three wishes at a time, as do the leprechauns (when they’re caught, that is—Jollis refuses to waive that requirement). The tooth fairies begin to fulfill wishes on every lost tooth, not just the first. Yet people keep coming back. “Wish junkies,” Merriam calls them affectionately, though her glow recedes as her mission takes its toll.

  The final straw is Wilfred. The worst of the wishful recidivists, Wilfred in his lifetime has encountered three leprechauns, six genies, and no fewer than twenty-seven fairies. He has tossed a hundred coins into a hundred fountains, stumbled upon eleven four-leaf clovers, and wished upon countless stars—shooting or not. Wilfred has to be the luckiest person in the history of people, with the most charmed of all charmed lives. Yet when he finds his way back to Merriam and Jollis, he is perfectly miserable, as despondent and wretched a traveler as ever walked the earth.

  “What is it?” Merriam asks him. “What do you wish for?”

  “I don’t know,” says Wilfred, staring at her with hollow eyes.

  Merriam’s shine dims even further. No traveler has ever failed to wish for something (other than a few naysayers who refuse on principle, though even they usually cave). She looks to Jollis with a hopeless air, as if Wilfred’s despair is contagious.

  “Just state your wish, traveler,” Jollis says to him.

  “I can’t,” says Wilfred. He sits down on the ground and stares at his palms in bewilderment. “I’ve gotten everything I ever wanted,” he says, “yet there’s still this hole in my heart that I fear will never go away.”