The Forgotten Tale

by J. M. Frey

  I run my hands through her hair, gentle, thoughtful. Soothing. Petting. “In ultimately understanding that I could not find one, I made one for myself. I am a self-made man in your world, my darling. And is that not the height of respectability there?”

  “Well, yeah,” Pip says. “I just . . . I don’t know. I feel like I haven’t been fair to you.”

  “And was I fair to you?” I ask in return, gently, sweetly. “Can you tell me there were not days when I frustrated you? When my lack of knowledge, of understanding, my inability to answer the phone or drive a car didn’t simmer inside your heart?”

  “Well, yes,” she admits.

  “And I know that our individual opinions of what a marriage should and shouldn’t be clash sometimes,” I point out.

  Pip’s lips curl upward. “That’s true.”

  “But we have worked that out, have we not?”

  “Yeah. And the make-up sex is pretty spectacular.”

  “And so, could I not be optimistic that these other small issues will also be worked out? I felt rudderless in your world, but I am coming to love and understand it. And our adventure has taught me that the idyll of the world I left behind was more fantasy than I remembered.”

  Pip smiles and tucks her arms around my waist, leaning up for a kiss that I am happy to bestow.

  “There are things about being the Ladyling Turn that I know I’ll miss,” Pip admits. “Though one of them will not be the silly honorific. But I see how much family means to you now. Not that I didn’t know how much you loved Alis and I, but, well, I won’t be so quick to pooh-pooh you when you talk about your brother or Pointe anymore. I promise.”

  Another kiss, and when it has come to its slow, syrupy stop, as all kisses naturally do, Pip adds: “I didn’t get it before, why you were so resentful of Elgar Reed. I was afraid of what he would do to Alis, but I didn’t think about your fear of what he could do to you—or what being around us might encourage him to write about Kin and Bev.”

  “And Wyndam, now,” I say.

  Pip leans away, so as to be able to meet my eyes. Her expression is all concern. “Do you think he’ll write more?”

  “Honestly?” I say, “I think Elgar Reed will never put quill to parchment ever again.”

  “Hmm,” Pip says. “On one hand, that’s a shame, because I really did love his work when I was younger. On the other, though . . . god, it’s just so problematic. His work is really derivative and misogynist, and honestly, if the rules of the magic he created really are so perfect they made themselves real, then I don’t want him to have the power to hurt anyone else.”

  “And do you suppose that, without his interference, every person and creature in Hain will now live an idyllic life of happily ever afters?”

  “I can hope?” Pip says.

  “Then I shall hope as well.”

  Our discussion is broken up by Alis’s piteous wail of, “Daah daa mama ma!”

  I fetch her out of the Turn family cradle, and Pip goes to the credenza for the ever-present bowl of porridge. It is still warm, so Alis is happy to settle on her father’s lap and allow her mother to persuade her to accept the spoonfuls. We had been discussing the transition to more solid foods back before we came here, and Alis had often expressed an interest in what we had on our own plates, eating little pieces of naan and peppers, and making faces if she didn’t like our selection of condiments. Now, I envision her learning to eat with the crumb of Cook’s fine white breads, and the soft goat cheese that Turnshire is known for, the stone-fruit jams, and the ginger sweets, and the braised venison of my own childhood.

  “This isn’t so bad,” Pip allows, as we feed Alis. “I mean, I’m not ready to give up trying to find a way back, but this . . . for now, this isn’t so bad. Your world during a peacetime is pretty relaxing.”

  “Oh dear,” I tease. “I wish I had my smartphone so I could have recorded that.”

  “Shut up,” Pip laughs at me.

  “Shut up!” Alis echoes, gleefully, and we all laugh together then.

  “Hmm,” I say instead, and duck down for a kiss. “Well, until another option presents itself, you shall simply have to put up with being an idle, pampered Ladyling.”

  “I think I’ll survive,” Pip says. “Do you have any other options in mind?”

  “I don’t,” I admit. “It is true that we could try another Deal-Maker, but it’s in their nature to lie and find ways to make the Deals go sour. I do not think I would trust ourselves to another.”

  “No. No, there has to be some other way. We just need to find it,” Pip says.

  I can’t help but grin. “Back to the Library, then? Is that what you’re proposing? Because I must admit that I am curious about how Saetesh is faring.”

  “Careful, bao bei,” Pip teases me, eyes glittering. “I might get jealous if you’re much more obvious about the fact you’re crushing on his big fat brain. And then the fans will start slashing you.”

  “Hmph,” I say. “They cannot. You are my only romantic interest. I have found my very own OTP already.”

  “Softy,” Pip whispers against my mouth, and then kisses me sweet and dear. “And oh, how very little you understand fandom, my hubby.”

  Twenty-Three

  Another three days pass in the domestic familiarity of Turn Hall, in which none of the household really rouses themselves much further than toward the kitchens or the nearest privy. I am quite content that Kintyre and Bevel’s rooms are in a different wing than our own, for there are noises that a man does not need to hear coming from his own brother’s quarters. Nor have him hear from his own.

  On the fourth night, Caerdac, Bradri, and the Pointes come to dinner, demanding a recounting of the adventure. Dorthi spends an inordinate amount of time remarking upon how much Alis has grown since she was last seen, and how many new words the little lady has added to her vocabulary, and Alis absolutely delights in the attention.

  We are all dressed in our best, and I feel quite myself again in my Turn-russet trousers, a matching waistcoat of floral brocade, and a mustard-yellow frock coat the color of Forsythia, a blossom from Pip’s world which she says does quite well for my complexion and gray eyes. She is dressed in another of my mother’s old gowns, a gold similar to the thread of the embroidery on my waistcoat, but with more flowing, swirling fabric in the skirts than Pip really knows what to do with.

  It is now warm enough to take our meal outside, and so we all crowd around a table in the rear courtyard, beside the kitchen garden, and watch the sun set as we regale my friend and his family with the tales of our adventure. Bevel has a small stack of parchment with him, and makes notes in pencil as we talk, making sure to get all the details correct. He can probably never publish this story, but he can at least record it for posterity. For the Shadow Hand who succeeds him, if no one else.

  No additional lights rise in the sky, as they have not since the night the last star went out, and when the sun sinks behind the horizon, we all watch the veil of the heavens for several silent moments, waiting . . . hoping . . . but no. Nothing appears.

  The moon, solitary, lonely, is the only light.

  Pip remembers the stories, perhaps not as well as I, but that has not returned the stars to the sky. The realms, the books, are still destroyed. We may never get them back.

  That puts a somber shade over our merrymaking, and Pointe and I excuse ourselves to take a turn about the fishpond, watching the fireflies and the fairy lights dance above the water. Moonflowers speckle the boundary between the lawns and the covey forest with a soft, yellow-white glow.

  At least here, below, the little lights of the world still twinkle and shine.

  “Is it selfish of me to be pleased that you didn’t just vanish at the end of this adventure?” Pointe says as we wander close enough to the forest for a pair of foxes to stop and chatter at us with laughs that sound almost human.

  “And a good evening to you, too,” I tell them, for one can never be sure which animals have human com
prehension or not. Then I turn to Pointe. “It is not selfish. Did you think I would?”

  “You did the last time.”

  “And for that, I am sorry.”

  Pointe shrugs and says nothing for a while.

  “Are you leaving, though?” he asks.

  “Pip would like us to.”

  “And you?”

  I look up at the starless sky and wonder if this is the beginning of the end for Hain. Without Elgar writing new tales, will this world fragment and collapse, like an old book falling to dust in the back of the returns bin? I fervently hope not. And yet, I cannot help the selfish thought that if it does, I do not want to be in it. I do not want Pointe and his family, nor Kintyre and his, in this world when that happens, either.

  But no, these books are too popular, too well-known. If books live on in the hearts and minds of Readers, then this world, my world, will live on for another thousand years.

  “I think perhaps I would like us to go, too,” I venture gently.

  Pointe nods as if this is no surprise to him.

  “It is only that, with the heir in the family seat, what is there for the spare to do?”

  “There’s lots,” Pointe says, and he doesn’t mention charity work, or my free school, or work as one of the Shadow’s Men, or how King Carvel sent a letter to Turn Hall the moment he learned I was out on an adventure, and that his messengers have daily been nagging me to move to Kingskeep and take up an official post as his advisor, or any of the other opportunities and good works that I would surely find to fill my day should I stay. But we are both thinking about them.

  “All the same,” I say. “I think it is important to raise my daughter in Pip’s kingdom.”

  “You mean the Writer’s realm?” Pointe asks, and when I shoot him a startled look, he grins and gives me a little shove. “Yeah, I would want my kid raised there, too, if I could swing it.”

  I am about to reply that it would also be my dearest wish when a sharp flare of light above my head catches my attention. At first, I think it is a fairy speeding across the field, but then I manage to pinpoint the source. It glimmers and twinkles, and is soon joined by a second bright, popping flare, which condenses into a dazzling, diamond-like glow, a pinprick of white light far above our heads.

  “The stars . . .” Pointe breathes.

  “The stars,” I agree. And then, a sudden thought occurs to me. “Oh, god, Pip!”

  I turn and dash back toward the house, Pointe hard on my heels. Pip is already halfway to us, Alis clutched tight in her arms, and the rest of the dinner party, servants included, are not far behind her. We collide in the darkness with a deliberate, joyful embrace, followed by a swift kiss.

  “The stars, bao bei!” she crows. “It must be Elgar!”

  “Do you think?” I ask, cautiously delighted.

  “Yes!” Pip shouts. “See? Look!”

  And there, not five paces away, the sky fills with the sound of the world shattering and a flare of light so brilliant that we must all shade our eyes. After-images dance in my vision, and Alis is giggling and clapping.

  “Is it safe, do you think?” I ask, as Pip leans toward the rip in the fabric between the realms. “Does it lead back to Victoria?”

  “Only one way to find out!” Pip enthuses.

  “And if it’s not?”

  “Then what’s one more adventure, bao bei?” Pip asks, windblown and grinning, and by the Writer, do I love my wife.

  Caught up in the current of her enthusiasm, I can only let myself drown in it, and grin. “What, indeed?”

  She leans up to kiss me, and as we part, she meets my eyes very seriously, asking without words.

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes, of course I’m coming with you.”

  “Then, this is goodbye then?” Pointe asks, sticking out his hand. I bypass his arm and hug him instead.

  “You could come.”

  “What, and leave the dragon and the kid in my place? No. Lysse would be on fire within the hour.” He says it with joviality, but it is forced. He blinks, hard. “Take care of yourself?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I will. And you take care, too. Fare well, Rupin Pointe.”

  “Fare well, Forsyth Turn,” Pointe says, his voice tellingly thick beside my ear. “Thanks for taking the time for goodbyes this time.”

  “Thank you for being here for it. I am so glad you got to meet my family.”

  I fear the portal will close quickly, so the rest of our leave-takings are swift and, though tear-filled, also triumphant.

  I hug Kintyre last, and he squeezes me tight, lifting my feet off the ground as he grunts, “Be well, brother,” in my ear. When he sets me down, he dashes at his eyes and turns away. I therefore cannot see his face when he says: “I’ll miss you, bookmouse. I . . . lo-love you. Go’wan.”

  His confession raises such a lump in my throat, so that I can only croak: “I’ll miss and love you too, you oaf.”

  Pip and I are going home. As one, we stand before the rip, and clasp hands.

  And then, through the portal, the whole of the crowd can hear the thud of someone dancing triumphantly, the sound of a proud Writer crowing: “I did it! Ha ha! I am a genius! I did it!”

  Laughing, filled to the brim with bubbling joy and a sort of desperate relief, Pip and I step through.

  ✍

  The light flares and fades, and I open my eyes to find myself flat on my back in my living room, wedged between my coffee table and my sofa. I touch the back and sides of my head, but I seem to have fortuitously missed both surfaces on my way into my swoon.

  “Did what?” Pip asks, as soon as the vertigo has cleared enough to allow us to sit up. Pip climbs to her feet and makes such a muddle of her skirts as she does so that she nearly falls down again.

  “Look! The books! The books are back!” Elgar Reed says, pointing with pride at our bookshelf. “And I’m the one who did it!”

  “How?” Pip asks, depositing a startled Alis in her playpen and wobbling over to where Elgar has thrust a much-inked sheet of paper at her.

  All around my reading chair, there are balls of paper and the corpses of used-up pens.

  Pip takes the paper and reads aloud:

  And though the author did not know why the other works of fantasy and science fiction literature were vanishing, he was confident in the great workings of his own world, that the magic inherently perfect within it would bring them back. He toiled to find just the right words to invoke the magic and reverse the slow drain of wonder in his own realm.

  Then, having found the perfect Words, the author invoked the spell which brought all the stories back into the world.

  The pleasant side effect of which was that a portal opened between the realm of his imagination and the realm of his reality, allowing Forsyth Turn, Lucy Piper, and Alis Mei Turn Piper to return to the author’s world. This portal opened a mere five feet away from them, and was bespelled to remain open until all three had come through. It was exactly the same as the portal which had taken them there in every respect, except for the direction it traveled.

  When the erstwhile travelers had returned home, the portal closed, and every book, poem, play, screenplay, comic, fan fiction, or other sort of writing and story that had vanished from the Writer’s world were restored to their proper places. And no one in the author’s world ever remembered that they were ever gone—except for the author, Forsyth, Alis, and Pip.

  The End.

  “Well then,” I say, coughing, a little choked up. “Bravo.”

  “What were the Words?” Pip asks, eager.

  “That’s the beauty of writing,” Elgar crows. “I have no idea. But I don’t need to know. I can just say that they were perfect, and they are.” He laughs, spreading his arms. “I tried to find the perfect words, and then I remembered that you said that Readers can’t hear Words of Power, and bam! Nothing I could come up with would be as good as just saying they were perfect.”

  “That’s some lazy-ass storytelling there, Elgar
Reed,” Pip says, but she does so with a smile, and embraces my creator with an enthusiasm that startles both of us. With a wide-eyed glance at me over my wife’s shoulder, Reed tentatively returns the hug.

  “How long were we gone?” I ask Reed, when Pip pulls away, and he shakes his head, still startled.

  “Uh . . . about eight hours? Maybe nine?”

  “About the same amount of time as it would take you to read a Kintyre Turn book,” Pip says, voice breathy with awe. Then she blinks, and looks back down at the paper. “Wait, it took you nine hours to come up with three paragraphs?”

  “Hey,” Reed says, shifting, defensive. “Writing is hard, okay?”

  Pip laughs, and hands the paper over to me so I can read for myself the spell that has brought us home. I have never seen Elgar’s handwriting before. It is cramped and scrawled. No wonder he preferred to compose on a typewriter. Or, now, a laptop.

  Pip wanders over to our bookshelf, hugging her elbows, looking pensive.

  “I can’t believe I forgot all of these stories,” Pip whispers, staring in worshipful awe at the books. It is once again jammed near to overflowing. It is evidence of our success, and the dusty jumble that usually fills me with consternation at its disorganized tip, fills me instead with pride and the satisfaction of a quest well completed.

  While it is the books that mesmerize my wife, I cannot stop staring at the paper in my hands. So easy a thing, so small a gesture, and so profound a change it has wrought in its Readers. Is that what being a Writer means? Not the creation, but the way that others are affected when they are done reading what you’ve toiled to create?

  If so, I cannot fault Reed for his drive to create, to write me and my whole world into existence.

  “Do you want to go back?” Reed asks, breaking into my little daydream, voice small. “Did I . . . are you mad at me?”

  For a moment, I consider it. Mad? Perhaps a little. I would have liked a better leave-taking, but at least this time, I was able to see Pointe and his family one last time. This time, I did not vanish from the lives of those I loved dearest with no warning, and no explanation.