Wham!

by Carol Marrs Phipps

  “That's right.”

  “Could we go outside and look?”

  “I'd love it. It's a beautiful evening.”

  Downstairs and out through the kitchen they went and down the rough sawed boards of the front steps into the evening air and the calls of toads and cricket frogs, where Tess whirled about to gaze back up at the little tree house. “Wow, wow, wow!” she said. “Maybe there is such a thing as magic.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “You're teasing me. Are you really a wizard?”

  “I'm sorry. I just didn't know what else to say...”

  “What's that bird?” she said, ambling out into the grass. “It is a bird, isn't it?

  Sounds like it's saying 'purple rib' over and over.”

  “It's a whip-poor-will.”

  “It's eerie sounding. Kind of pretty at the same time, though. Wow! What's that light in the sky?”

  “In the west, yonder? Why that's the evening star, Venus...”

  “So that's what a star looks like...”

  “Now you're teasing.”

  “No I'm not. The old people talk about stars, but I've never seen one in my life.”

  “Well up there overhead to the south. That's Saturn, another one. And there'll be 'way more when it really gets dark. And I've been a-seeing Mars in the east. It looks rusty red...”

  “The moon!” she gasped at the sight of it, just above the trees.

  “You mean to tell me that you've never seen that, either?”

  “Oh I see the moon all the time,” she said. “I've just never seen a face on it before. So there is a Man in the Moon after all.” She looked down at the grass stem she was twisting as she listened to another whip-poor-will beginning to sing from the woods. “I guess you'll go back home and be with your wife and daughter, right when you left, then?”

  “Wife and daughter?”

  “Well who's Ariel and Abigail?”

  “Ariel is my sister and Abaddon is her husband. They share the throne of

  Loxmere.”

  “You're not married?”

  “Why no.”

  “Engaged?”

  “You mean betrothed? Promised? No...”

  “Oh,” she said, getting her breath.

  “This makes a difference?”

  “I'm sorry. I'm just being all clumsy and silly.”

  “Good!” he said. “Now I'm not the only one. You know, with your being so pretty and all.”

  Chapter 17

  Tess awoke at the first light of dawn to the ethereal calls of a bird in the woods not far from her window. She threw back her covers and padded softly to the window and stood in the fresh air as it stirred the curtains. “Oh! I'd give anything to see it,” she murmured as she breathed in the sweet woodsy air. “'Eee-o-lay' it says. Wow! It pulls at the heart.” After a time she turned away, found her buckskin kirtle and dressed for the day.

  The great house bore a deep silence as she stepped into the hallway, but by the time she had come all the way down the stairs she heard murmuring beyond the far end of the great hall and found Meri and Celeste in the kitchen having a pot of tea.

  “Good morwnynge Tess,” said Celeste. “didistow slepen wel?”

  “Better than I have for a very long time at the very least,” said Tess.

  “Woldestow lyche a coppe? Hit wol be a coupill of howre bifore breke fast.”

  “Thank you, Grandma. But I think I'd like to go outside instead and wander about until then, if you don't mind.”

  “Certainly,” said Meri. “Just stay within sight of the house so it'll be easy to find you when it's time to eat.”

  “That bird!” said Tess, pausing at the kitchen door. “What is it? I've never heard anything so beautiful.”

  “Ah!” said Meri. “That is a wood thrush. And they are the very bells of tranquility, giving joy to be alive.”

  “Thou hast nat herd hem byforn?” said Celeste. “Als hit thynketh me thou woldest hem to haven in the wodes al a-boute Gollsport.”

  “I'm afraid our woods are so poisoned that you never hear birds. We still have starlings and house sparrows in town, but I've never heard or seen anything else.”

  “Your world sounds worse the more we hear,” said Meri, sharing a look of shock with Celeste.

  “It is hard to live there,” said Tess, looking out at the sunrise. “But since I knew nothing else growing up, it took coming here to this wonderful time to even begin to see how horrible it really is.” And before she had thought about what she was doing, she blurted out: “I just don't understand how Dad could ever have gone to the future and raised us without even letting us know who we are or anything at all about this wonderful past. He even let Children and Family come and take away Mom and Nia and him. I always thought he was wonderful. How could he!” And with that she was out the door and down the steps into the glorious new day.

  “Poer child,” said Meri, rising from his chair with wide eyes. “Ich shal to gon and fynden hir.”

  “Lat hir be for a tyme,” said Celeste, putting her hand on his arm. “She needeth to soortyn out thynges in hir herte.”

  Tess ran down the path to the Fairy ring. When she got there, she knelt and studied it. “How odd to step across a ring of fungus and end up in such a different world,” she thought as she ran a finger over the top of a mushroom. “So I'm a Fairy and I am magic,” she said aloud as if saying so would make it feel real. “I sure don't feel any different.”

  The pewee in the tree overhead was calling to another one at the far end of the hogback as she got to her feet. “I looked like a spoilt shit,” she said with a shudder at the thought of her outburst at the kitchen. “Good grief! As if they let me down somehow. As if I had the right to pour scorn all over Dad. I simply have to apologize.” She was determined to think better of things before opening her mouth from now on. “And here I am 'way out of sight of the tree house.”

  She was relieved when she got close enough to see it, but no one was looking for her just yet, so she meandered about admiring the flowers and bushes in bloom and the glory of the burr oaks scattered across the downs. The tree house was built in the crotch of an enormous oak, one of a grove of everwaking oaks, many times larger than typical burr oaks, with their massive branches spread wide, bearing curious dark evergreen leaves which collapsed to dangle by their petioles at the wrong sort of touch. There was something enchanting about these giants, once she had noticed them. One oak in particular seemed to draw her to it. She walked up slowly, awed by its size. “What sights you must have seen through the years,” she said, resting her hands on its trunk. Instantly visions and whisperings filled her, and all grasp of who and what she was fell away from her as she became one with its overwhelming presence.

  After a time, though Tess had no idea how long, she felt another presence. She slowly realized it was her grandmother, bidding her to return to her own body from the great matron tree she now knew as Longbark. She resisted at first, as if being awakened from the deepest sleep, but Celeste insisted that she really must come away to rest and recover, and that Longbark would always be there for her to commune with. Tess bid the great oak farewell and opened her eyes to find Meri, Daniel and Teeuh there as well. Her legs seemed deeply rooted in the comfortable earth but had no feeling at all, so that when she attempted to stand, she toppled over at once to be caught by Meri and Daniel.

  “My legs are asleep,” she said as they started for the house. “I must've been here longer than I imagined.”

  “How long do you imagine?” said Daniel.

  “At least an hour,” she said. “Maybe even two.”

  “That's closer than what Ariel and I reckoned when we did it. You were actually here over fifty-four hours.”

  “Me? Fifty-four hours? That's better than two days. You have to be telling the truth, but I don't believe it.”

  “Heere,” said Rodon, handing her a dipper of water from a bucket. “And slowliche,” he said, watching her drink.

  “Must
really be a two day thirst,” she said, taking a breath.

  Presently they had her sitting at the board in the kitchen. “Nacea and Alvita have mowfines righte of the gridele and pyes out of the oven thou koudest eten and ga to bed,” said Celeste. “Or, thou koudest to wayten un-til half passed enlevene to ete dyner.”

  “I never would have imagined a tree (of all things) full of information,” said Tess. “And Longbark has given me so much of it that I'm not sure I'll ever make sense of it all.”

  “O sort thurgh hit in tyme thou wolt,” said Celeste.

  “Some of it immediately,” said Daniel as he sat beside her. “And some of it might take a year or two, but you never seem to forget it and it all does fall into place.”

  “Wow Teeuh!” she said, looking up from her first muffin and jam. “You really are

  Longbark's daughter. And something more...”

  “My verray mooder whoso maked me and browht me to lyven,” said Teeuh with her look of reverence and pointed teeth. “And Celeste, Alvita and Nacea arne my wondreful mamas, Rodon my fader derre and thou art myn verray herte suster. And Mooder Longebarke hath nat nevere spak with eny oon with-outen an introduccione by my mamas or Meri or me un-til thou.”

  “I'm honored,” said Tess. “But I don't begin to understand what it means.”

  “And honored you are, dear girl,” said Meri. “On that we all agree.”

  * * *

  Tess awoke once again to the calls of a wood thrush. This time she was determined to see it. She got out of bed at once, dressed and discovered that the house was enough darker than before that she had difficulty finding her way downstairs without running into things. No one was in the kitchen. She found the door latch and went outside. At the bottom of the steps she heard the thrush and hurried toward it through the knee-high grass, getting her skirt soaking wet with dew before she noticed.

  There it was again, somewhere out by Longbark, but as she tramped up the rise, she heard chanting and found Meri facing the growing light in the east. Suddenly there was a brilliant stab of sunlight from the trees.

  “Please kneel while I give thanks to the giver of all life,” he said without taking his eyes off the light. “Corn pollen is the prayer which allows us to walk in beauty.” He took out his bag of pollen and offered pinches of it to the air before the blinding light.

  Without warning, he turned about and began dusting her. “Changing Woman found herself covered with dew,” he said. “And the humming bird showed her how to gather pollen and walk the pollen path.”

  He held out his hand and helped Tess to her feet. “You'll need these for what you have ahead,” he said as he took off a necklace of turquoise beads and a small pouch on a terrapin hide thong and slipped them over her head. “The pouch is full of yellow corn pollen.” And without a word between them, he led her back to the house and with a bow, set her at her place at the board in the kitchen.

  In the air heavy with the smell of cherry pies and cinnamon buns coming out of the ovens, Tess discovered to her astonishment that she had not only slept away the afternoon and night following her commune with Longbark, but the entire next day and night as well.

  “And weo wolde have supprised yben hadst thou nought,” said Celeste as she set pie on the board. Soon everyone in the house was enjoying a wonderful breakfast, immersed in talk about Tess's experience with Longbark and her return to her own time with Daniel and Teeuh.

  “Then you think it best to take Teeuh and Daniel straightway to meet this troll you call Maxi, aye?” said Meri, pausing to nibble away a cherry from his spoonful of pie.

  “No one has more connections than Maxi,” said Tess. “And I even think he has something to do with the underground, from little things I've heard Dad and Drake say.

  But if he doesn't, he might feel safe enough to tell us who has.”

  “And what exactly is the underground?” said Daniel, who had come 'round the board with his buttered bun and saucer to sit beside her.

  “It's a network of people who've joined together to fight the tyranny of the World Alliance.”

  “And this Woreld Allyaunce for poysinynge thine woreld doith answeren?” said Teeuh.

  “I'm sorry. I didn't quite get that.”

  “Is it the World Alliance who's poisoned everything?” said Daniel.

  “Yeh, for starters. And as I've said before, they control absolutely everything. They are the world government.”

  “And who's their leader?” said Meri.

  “No one knows,” said Tess. “Well. Those high up in the government would have to, but no one else. No one I've ever talked to knows. And that's what I hear the underground has been trying to find out, along with where the capitol's located.”

  “Capitol,” said Meri, pushing aside his saucer and picking out an early apple from the bowl on the board. “By that, do you mean where the throne is?”

  “I don't understand 'throne' any better than you do 'capitol,'“ said Tess. “But the capitol is where everyone thinks the leader or the people in charge would be. And of course no one can bring down a government they can't find.”

  “Thy peple som thynges aboute hem moste knowe,” said Nacea as she returned to the board with her basket of knitting.

  “We know that the Alliance began right after a long period when the banks gradually foreclosed on everyone's property and then began merging until nearly all of the world's property and wealth ended up being controlled by a mere handful of people in the shadows,” said Tess. “The Alliance simply controls everything. And in school we're told that everyone is far more prosperous than at any time in history because of it, too. And a great part of the public, particularly those born after the Alliance rose, believe every word of it, even when they go to bed hungry at night. But that's because they've got everyone brainwashed with the skinnies and sublim boards.”

  “Which are skinwelers,” said Meri.

  “I remember you saying that, Grandpa. And after you did, it occurred to me that skinweler was an old fashioned term for them. But how would you even know that? This is over seven hundred years ago. You couldn't possibly know anything about helicopters, cars, bicycles or firearms. Do you?”

  “To hear the things you say, I'm inclined to be grateful that I do not know the slightest thing about any of them,” said Meri. “But I am sorry to say that I do know about skinwelers. They were brought into the world during the reign of Queen Spitemorta, who was also known as the Reaper Witch or as Baineor Buile Cailli to the Elves. It was she who for a very short time was the right vile Empress of the World.”

  “So they've been around that long and they're magical rather than technological?” said Tess.

  “I have no more grasp of what is meant by 'technological' than I am familiar with these things you mention, these carcycles and heliarms. And I can't imagine someone going about, washing brains. But I assure you that skinwelers are as old as I said and that they be quite magical indeed.”

  “And these sublim boards,” said Daniel. “What are they?”

  “I have no idea whether they're magical or not,” said Tess. “They're hung on the wall like large pictures, but their images move, like in the skinwelers. But worse than that, while you're watching the moving images, they flash messages faster than the eye can see, which puts them into your mind without your knowing, changing how you think and only revealing themselves in your dreams. We watch the sublim boards at school and the skinnies quiz us about our dreams the next morning. Hardly anyone can afford a sublim board, but most people long for them.”

  “So you didn't know that you were a Fairy and you didn't know that skinwelers were magical,” said Daniel. “Sounds like your throneless throne wants to make exclusive use of magic.”

  “And what they mean by 'brainwashing,' Grandpa, is filling your head with so many lies that you end up not knowing anything else. And that may be how I never knew I was a Fairy.”

  “And your time sounds as though it is in such urgent trouble that we've little
choice but to make good use of ours,” said Meri, rising from his chair. “We need to find Kellen before disaster arrives. Everyone has eaten. Why don't you and I step outside and see something, now that you've been with Longbark?”

  Tess followed him down the steps to have him hand her a small dark green stone ball. “Is this some kind of skinweler?” she said.

  “This is a kind of scrying ball, all right,” he said, “but it requires the one using it to be magic, which means it must be used by a Fairy. Daniel has another kind of scrying ball which must be used by the magical ones, in other words, Elves and wizards. A skinweler can be used by anyone so long as someone magical is controlling it. Now, let's see what you can do with that.”

  “What do I do?”

  “Just say or think about where you want to see and just look at it. See if you can see Celeste and them in the kitchen.”

  “Wow! I see Grandma and Teeuh. And Uncle Rodon and Aunt Alvita. And there's Aunt Nacea.”

  “Good,” he said. “Longbark has put you in touch with yourself. And it's possible that she gave you extra abilities as well. Just be ready for differences when you get back.

  I think it will be safe, having Teeuh and Daniel with you when things come up. Now you're welcome to stay here as long as you like, but I do urge you to return immediately, since we don't know how much time we have to find Kellen. Oh. Let's try something. Look at Celeste and them again. See them?”

  “Yes?”

  “Ask to go there, just like you asked to see them.”

  “Why isn't this working?” she said, frowning at the ball.

  “It shouldn't,” he said. “No Fairy can make it work except for Teeuh. Longbark gave her taisteal when she made her, except that she needs her scrying ball like unto the one I just gave you to see where she's going when she does.”

  “This is mine?”

  Meri nodded.

  “Thank you, Grandpa.”

  When they went back inside, Nacea and Alvita began tugging at her again and changed her buckskin kirtle back into the shorts and tank top she'd arrived in. Celeste fastened about her neck a turquoise choker which matched the necklace Meri had given her, and then everyone went outside. After hugs and farewells all 'round, Tess, Daniel and Teeuh set off on the path for the woods and the Fairy ring beyond.