by James Comins
“Here’s what we need to do, Talvi,” said Baldur. “We’ll travel over the surface of the land and follow Lenna’s journey through its ripples in the outer world. This will be easy for you and me. Gullvig and Binnan Darnan won’t be able to accompany us easily, though.”
“Canyouget MoBagohn togowithher?” Shadow Talvi asked. “Shesa na turemagician.”
“Very dangerous, this trinketty thing we do,” quacked Gullvig, “walking into magic during Fimbulsummer. The Changes come quick and without a gong of warning. The door to enter has rules. One person in the door, one person out. Two people won’t fit. And if there’s a Change, and there should be, then a green lady could be trapped in a red world.”
“In Fimbulsummer,” Baldur added, “you must be able to use each magic in turn. With enough magicians and fair warning, it could be done as a team, but Hodur says there isn’t time. In this place, at this time, Lenna’s the only one who matches all magic.”
Shadow Talvi’s flickering face was unsettled.
“TalviTalviTalvi don’t worry,” said Lenna. “I’m brave, and I can handle everything. I believe this.”
Binnan Darnan gave Lenna a big smiling nod, flapping black hair over her face.
“She knows so little magic yet,” murmured Hodur. “I turn the eyes of loss away from her, that no uncontrolled mischance should hinder her on this venture.”
Lenna curtsied to Hodur, realized this was stupid, and said “thank you, Mr. Hodur” instead. He smiled sadly.
“Then in, girlie,” yapped Gullvig.
“Right. So I look at the magic of the tree?” She marched up to the M-shaped tree, which had hit the ceiling again and was bending toward the floor, and she sat, and she looked and looked and looked.
“Now open the door,” Gullvig told her.
Lenna stared at the pitchy chocolate craquelure of the pine-smelling trunk and at the pointed branch-stumps sticking out. Maybe the branches were secret levers? She poked a finger at one and got spruce goo on her finger.
“But there isn’t a door. It’s a tree.”
“Not a door in the tree, silly, a door in the magic,” said Gullvig.
“Oh.” She squinted very hard. It was a tree.
“If you don’t close your eyes, you won’t see anything,” said Gullvig.
Lenna let her eyes fall closed, put her hand out, and the world behind her dropped away. When she opened her eyes a little, there was green in her peripheral vision, a bright twisting green background. Blue sky was there, too, but only when she kept her eyes shut. A faded bunny hopped forward, then a badger, then flowers. The crooked tree unbent, stretching endlessly to the sky. Birds landed on its branches, and there was a tidy yellow door framed politely in teal, with a doormat. It came up as tall as her knees.
Lenna knelt and pressed the doorbell with the tip of her pinky fingernail. A bell dinged.
Chapter Ten
The Verdance of Verdandi
or, You Shouldn’t All Be So Happy
Lenna was far too big for the door, so she scrunched herself down to a smaller size, and she was three inches tall. The bunny loomed gigantically at her, like an astounding dun bison.
“Come in,” the bunny sniffled to her.
The grass was waist-high, real plant grass, not the cloth stuff from crystal-land. She pulled out a young stalk and swished it around like a sword. A low spiky bristled door-scraper shaped like a toad was set beside the entrance, and she scraped off all the fire-tower mud from her beige diamond-stitched teacozy slippers, left foot scrape, right foot scraaaape, very proper. A thistle plant had grown very tall on the other side, entwined around a rough clay statue of a rat and a mota. The trunk of the spruce was broad, with glass windows. The yellow door in the trunk of the wind-waving spruce swung open as she approached, reeeeeee, and the bunny nodded its head, nudging her toward the entrance. Steadying herself in the dreamscape by putting a hand on the edge of the yellow door, she slipped inside.
The short anteroom was dirt somehow, not the tree-ringed wood she was expecting. Shaggy dirt clung to the ceiling, square walls and floor. It was a bunny burrow. Tiny two-leafed green sprouts grew out of the dirt in all directions. A terrycloth throw rug had been laid out on the floor, and an oak buffet wore a long white doily that dangled over its sides with tassels. It was a small room, with a shut blue door on the far side.
From inside the dirt wall a framed sign slid out. It read:
THESE ARE THE RULES
Rule One: Take the longest way.
Rule Two: Where are you going to?
Rule Three: Why?
Rule Four: One in the door.
Rule Five: One out the door.
Rule Six: Keep your temper.
“Those aren’t rules! Two and three. You aren’t rules at all,” Lenna scolded the sign. “How am I supposed to follow the rule of ‘why?’ How can a question be a rule? You don’t make any sense at all.”
A tiny second sign no bigger than a shoe tilted out from inside the loam, creaking around a brass rod.
ASK QUESTIONS
it read.
“But hm! Am I s’posed to ask you signs the questions? You should have said that. You’re being too mysterious. And I don’t believe that you have all the answers prepared. Where am I going to?” she asked.
THE MIDDLE
said a third sign, bending around a hinge.
It was all prepared, very old, calligraphed on parchment, with a border of French curves like an old silent movie placard. It was framed in wood. It had been hiding just beneath the buffet, lurking. It was a lurking lurking sign.
“Where’s the middle? How do I get there?” Lenna threw her hands in the air.
The blue door became unlatched, crooook, leading inward, but all the signs blocked the way.
“And I must take the long way. Yes. So.” Lenna stared at the signs with her fists on her hips. “You signs must please move aside now, I think.”
ARE YOU SURE?
flashed from the ceiling.
This sign was electric plastic, hanging from the dirt ceiling like an exit sign. A bell rang, dinglinglingling.
“No,” said Lenna slyly. “Why should I go to the middle?”
THAT’S WHERE YOU’RE GOING
This one was drawn in magic marker on a piece of brown corrugated cardboard. It seemed newer than the rest. Maybe it was just drawn by someone in the walls.
“Aaa! All right, you--you bunch of signs. Let me in.”
The
ARE YOU SURE
sign flashed and the bell rang again.
“Let me in let me in!” Lenna shouted.
KEEP YOUR TEMPER
shone with a lightbulb behind the list of rules.
The signs spun on their hinges back into the sprouty turf in all directions, and the door leading inside fell all the way open.
And she walked through.
Beyond the sprouty dirt, beyond the powder-blue door, was a cartoon.
Colors shone.
Everything that moved was followed by music. Nothing was black or white or gray. Nothing was dim or faded. Everything was so bright and so sunny that it hurt.
Lenna walked out the door into a flowerbed. Daisies sang songs, violets blushed shyly, grasshoppers wore top hats, leas of leaves closed together to hide secret gardens and single sparkling roses under glass. To either side were fields of wonder: dense patches of clover chomped by tiny lambs, a fish diva lying across a seashell bed draped with pearl curtains, bluebirds circling one another, a tree marked “Saunders,” a tiny fawn snuggling with a skunk.
It wasn’t anything like real life in here. All the plants and bunnies and things acted as if every moment was perfect.
And maybe it was perfect. Maybe this was a perfect world, and maybe nothing went wrong here, and maybe everything was good. But it didn’t feel that way. It felt like real trouble. Lenna wasn’t sure why she was so nauseated, but she was. It was too much. Too much magic.
A path of marigolds ran beneath
the shade of mile-high amanita mushrooms. They were lit by a huge yellow rosy face, smiling and rocking in the sky, surrounded by a turning ring of yellow pyramids. The sun.
“Hello, Lenna!” said the sun. Its smile was a mile wide. “Welcome to the Verdance of Verdandi!”
“How exciting.” This world was not delighting her. “There’s too much magic here, Mr. the Sun. How do I stop it?”
“Aw, please don’t stop the magic,” said the sun. “Come have fun!”
A wheel of blue butterflies spun down from the sky and began dancing for her. They reminded her of Ljos, disgustingly. A pair of pelicans walked along walked along, a garter snake did the rhumba, a parade of dormice in bellhop’s red uniforms began to sing to her, one of the bluebirds landed on her shoulder, the flowers whistled, the mushrooms bent their stems, there was a wild drumroll, and after a brief crash of dandelions, the music began.
Lenna started walking into the dancing garden. All the little little animals marched behind her, following her happily, tromping in time to the cartoon music. From behind a mushroom came a cat, a chicken, a dog and a donkey, playing violins and flutes and accordions. A waddle of penguins waddled past, accompanied by zippy kazoo music. A band of bears had formed an orchestra in the back of a cart, conducted by another bear. Swans held heart-shaped bunting banners afloat in the sunrise sky. Lenna kept walking.
“You shouldn’t all be so happy,” she grumbled to a mouse. The mouse cheeped.
The parade behind her was so happy. Happy that she was there with them, happy that it was always daytime. It reminded Lenna of how the cat on the neighboring dragon farm had always perked up when she would come over, meowing and rubbing against her leg.
Lenna didn’t feel happy. She felt angry. Why did so much happiness make her angry? She wondered if these dancing creatures could feel sadness or anger or anything else besides crazy joy.
A strange shadow twirled a cape across the marigold path. She stopped and stared: Yellow boots, a long red tail, a purple tunic, a draping yellow highwayman’s hat with a pink fluffy feather, and a pair of devious green eyes in a froth of red fur.
A fox.
“At your service, ma cherie,” said the fox, doffing his cap to Lenna.
The flowers screamed. The smaller and fuzzier animals froze, while the larger ones lumbered away. The grasshoppers leaped away over everyone’s heads. Birds scattered, leaving a thin drift of feathers. One of the mushroom trees opened its eyes, rearing up. “H-hello, Renard,” the mushroom stuttered.
The fox turned his smile away from Lenna, winked back at her, and whirled, slicing through the stem of the mushroom with a sweep of his duelling epee. He held it to the air for a moment, twaaaanggg, while the giant spotted red mushroom slid off its stalk with a gurgle. Renard the Fox sheathed his sword.
“Ma petite, I couldn’t agree more,” he told Lenna. “Indeed they should not have such jolie. L’avalanche has made this land quite unbearable. Will you lend me your name, ma petite?”
“Lenna, Mr. Foxen.” She curtsied.
“Merci. But you did not ask why I wanted it,” said the fox.
“Huh?”
“If you lend me your name, then I may return it to you later on. Do you see?”
“Can’t I hold onto it?” Lenna asked.
“We’ll make a pact. My name for yours, until it is time for you to leave our land of excessive prettiness. Is that fair, do you think?”
“Okay.” She shrugged.
“Then a pleasure to meet you, Renard,” the fox told her, bowing with his hat off.
“A pleasure to meet you, Lenna,” she told the fox, curtsying again with a giggle.
“Then let us begin. If you are to diminish this insouciance, we must equip you with the appropriate hunting equipment. Indeed, there is no finer sport than le chase. Which style of arms do you prefer? The foil, as I have?” He swooshed the air a few times with an empty hand and patted the grip of his sword. “The fusillade?” He sighted down an imaginary rifle and went “kapow!”
Squinting, he shook his head. “No, perhaps not. The crossbow it will have to be. Yes. Do you have a crossbow, Miss Renard?”
“Mmmno, Mr. Lenna.” She stifled another giggle.
“Ah, then we’ll borrow one. My dear friend Tibert has one that should prove manageable. Finicky things, but highly accurate. Also horses. Hurrah, follow me.”
He bounded away with a bright pace through the marigolds. She hurried after. The mushroom trees tilted away in fear, birds hopped away when they approached, and they only encountered one animal who didn’t run at their approach. It was a bear, to whom Lenna the Fox doffed his cap.
“Lenna,” the bear said cautiously to the fox. He eyed Renard the Girl warily.
“Bruin, mon ami!” the fox replied. “My dear friend Renard here was just telling me about a luscious beehive full of the finest honey, which she stumbled upon in her wanderings.”
“Honey?” said Bruin.
“Oui, my friend. Just that way--” he pointed. “Only there’s a farmer in the area, so you must go well-armed. I recommend a crowbar. Good day.”
And each continued on his way. Renard trailed behind the fox and pondered after the lumbering bear.
“Mademoiselle, I have neglected my manners--” the fox said to Renard.
“I am not a weaselle,” frowned Renard, crossing her oven-mitted arms.
“Oh pardon, pardon, here is what I meant. On your left you see in the middle distance the circling cloud kingdom of the King of Birds.” The clouds were bright white and cottony, with a palace atop each one. “To our right is the burrow leading to the Eiderdown Thistledown Town, where all burrowing sirs, including myself truly, have our homes. Well ahead of us is the Beanstalk, where Maitresse lives.” A green stalk twisted around and around itself, studded up and down with leaves. It disappeared up into the clouds. “But our destination is none of these. Here is where the path turns, and here is where we go.”
At a field full of pear trees, broad and drenched in light, Lenna the Fox turned away from the marigold path and marched into a thigh-high thicket of irises. The field flowed up a low hill that overlooked a river valley. It was a river like no other, blueberry-blue, nearly flat and windless, quickly flowing and bubbling around rocks and tufts of grass and rushes. On the far side of the narrow river, a dignified manor house and stable were set against a forest.
“Behold, the château of my very dear ami, Tibert.”
“It’s very very very pretty,” said Renard. She found that this part of the Verdance of Verdandi wasn’t so sugary-stupid. “Why aren’t they dancing and singing?” she asked.
“What’s that? Ah, well, this is the old country, Madame Not-a-weaselle. L’avalanche has not as yet reached it. Come, we will fetch equipage for the chase.
The manor house was green and cream-colored with a Mansard roof and draping ivy and clay fences. It lay on the other side of the river. Lenna the Fox took his boots off and dove in; he motioned Renard the Girl to wait. Swimming with his hat and boots held above him, the fox paddled up to a rowboat tied to a short old dock. Throwing his boots inside, he climbed into it and rowed it back to her. At the shore, the fox leaned out and gripped the riverbank with his claws, steadying the rowboat. She tiptoed forward and steadied herself on the tilting hull. Her quilted flame-retardant shoes wicked shorewater into themselves soppily as she balanced her toe on the line between thick grass and riverstone and leveraged herself into the updownup of the dinghy. The fox fitted the paddles into the U-locks and pushed off, they waved, waved, they waved.
“May I try?” Renard asked the fox.
“Of course.” Lenna held out the two thin paddles to her, half stood and climbed to the prow bench.
The paddles weren’t heavy, but they bent in different directions when she pushed down on them. They also twisted in the current against her hands. She took the beige oven mitts off and tossed them irritably into the water, watched them float and gently sink. The paddles were easier to gri
p now, but they splashed across the surface the first time she pushed off. The fox watched her discerningly. Finally she dug into the water and moved the boat forward. The current had moved them down the river, but she comfortably scooted them to the other side.
“Masterful work, Renard,” the fox told her as he tied the boat to a post.
She blinked and frowned. “All right,” she said, “I want my name back now.”
“Our game does not amuse you, ma petite? Will you not take advantage of the ... advantages, then?”
“What are the advantages of being named Renard?” she asked.
“You may do whatever you would, and it will all be under my name. The worst sorts of trouble, yes? At the end, we merely agree to end the game. Does this not appeal?”
“This is just a magical world anyway” she said. “Nothing I do here will matter.”
“Exactly.” The fox winked and led her to the front door of Tibert’s villa.
Chapter Eleven
Time Magic
or, Shoes That Go the Whole Way Around
Climbing roses framed the doorway. Renard the Girl asked if she could pick one. Lenna waved her on. He knocked on the door, and she selected the best orange one and the best pink one, de-thorned them and slid them together behind her left ear under her hair like bougainvillea.
“Did you just steal my roses?” asked a sneering voice by her ear.
“Yes,” she said automatically, looking around.
“I’m so pleased to hear it. What an excellent policy, this honesty. Des roses do set your face aglow.”
“Why thank you.” She adjusted her hair.
“But what is this you are wearing?”
The voice was that of a grey-ticked tabby in a brown tunic with white baggy sleeves, leaning over the cream clay fence.
“Tibert!” declared the fox.
“Lenna!” the cat replied.
The cat clasped the hand of the fox. “Ah, good of you to come by. I fear a new outfit for mademoiselle may be in order.”
Renard looked down at her plain beige teacozy with its white diamond stitches. It looked like a teacozy, round and dumb.