by G. P. Ching
* * * * *
God, he hated his dreams. Jacob rolled over and looked at the clock—five-thirty. What he wouldn’t give for a full night’s sleep. He reached under the pillow to try to get comfortable. His fingers tangled in a cord. Rolling onto his back, he pulled his hand out and the red stone came with it, twinkling in the early morning light.
Between his thumb and forefinger, he examined the stone again, the light picking up the network of facets under the smooth surface. When he would orient it in just the right way, a black square was visible, as if the stone had formed around an imperfection. He brought the stone closer to get a better look and the redness seemed to grow larger with his shift in perspective. A weightless shift, like free falling, overcame him. He reached out to grab the bed but it was gone. His room was gone. He fell into the black square at the center of the red and stood up in the oddest place he could have imagined. It was blank, an empty page.
“Where am I?” he asked. His body felt funny, disconnected somehow.
“In between,” a voice said.
In the blink of an eye, he was standing in a hardware store. Behind the counter, an old man in overalls and a cap drummed his fingers.
“Who are you?” Jacob asked.
“You don’t remember me? Well, I guess I looked different when I gave you the stone.” Abruptly, the man shrank into the hunched dwarf woman, and then grew back into himself. “I thought this form would be easier for you,” he said.
“What are you? What is this place?”
“A gift from the Achuar. The Healer felt sorry for you, for the loss of your mama. She wanted to give you something. I am a window.”
“A window?”
“I am part of the Healer’s medicine, her gift of sight. I am a shadow of her mind. Ask me and I will answer.”
“So I can ask you anything?”
“You can. But I can only answer questions about the future, as it stands today. The future is always changing. Every decision is a fork in the road. I can tell you only where the road leads, today. But mind yourself, Horseman; knowledge of the future is a dangerous thing. Are you prepared?”
“Yes,” he said, too quickly.
“Then ask what you will.”
“Where is my mother?”
“That is a question about the present, not the future. I cannot answer.”
“Then, will I find my mother?”
The man pulled out a hubcap from behind the counter. He selected a variety of nuts and bolts from various bowls, and folded them into his greasy palm. Shaking them vigorously, he threw them like dice into the hubcap. They crashed and clanged. When they’d settled at the center the man leaned over them, reading their position against the metal. “Yes,” he said.
“Is she alive?”
“I can’t answer that question.”
Jacob was beginning to understand. He tried again.
“Will she be dead or alive when I find her?”
The nuts and bolts made a sound like a cymbal as they hit the pan.
“Neither.”
“Neither. That doesn’t make any sense. Explain?”
The man shook his head. Frustrated, he tried again.
“Will I use the tree to find her?”
Clang
“Yes.”
Jacob thought hard about how to phrase his next question.
“How will I find the notebooks about the tree?”
Crash
The man studied the pattern of nuts and bolts. “Gideon,” he said.
The white walls of the store bled to pink, then red.
“Looks like it’s time for you to go. Y’all come back now, real soon,” said the man, waving his meaty hand. Backward Jacob flew, as if the stone was spitting him out. He fell onto his bed, into the square of light streaming through the window. Someone was banging on his door.
“Time for church, moron,” yelled Katrina.
“I’ll be right there.” He slid the stone back under his pillow and bounded out of bed, bracing himself for another long morning.