The Land Beyond Summer is posted for entertainment purposes only and no part of it may be crossposted to any other datafile base, conference, news group, email list, or website without written permission of Pulpless.Comtm.
Copyright © 1996 by Brad Linaweaver. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER TWO
GOBLIN DREAMS
That day in the boat on Pine Lake seemed to go on forever.
Grandfather talked to them until the sun was behind the trees.
Everything was bathed in red light, casting a sanguinary pall
over the scene. Grandfather looked scarier than ever, as if his
whole body had become a statement in blood.
Clive and Fay hung on his every word, not out of interest
but from the greater force of fear. Concentration did them
little good, however, as Grandfather began using unfamiliar
terminology; and his sentences became convoluted and impossible
to follow. Clive glanced over to see if Fay understood what was
said (despite her younger age, she had a bigger vocabulary than
her brother) but it was soon apparent that she was as confused as
he.
The sentences became more intricate and bizarre, clearly
plundered from the storehouse of some alien tongue. The words
sort of crawled over the young, captive audience, like bugs, and
only a few had enough semblance to English for them to get inside
the ears and brains.
Grandfather didn't seem to care whether he was understood or
not. He was making some kind of prepared speech, addressing
someone or something not immediately present. Although Clive had
given up trying to make sense out of what sounded to him like
gibberish, Fay was sure that it must be a foreign language. She
could tell Spanish when she heard it. From movies and TV, she
had some idea of the sounds of German and French. Finally she
joined her brother in surrender. This was nothing like any other
language; perhaps it was a dead language, or something
Grandfather was simply making up.
Suddenly it was all over. They listened to silence, broken
only by their breathing, the lapping of the water and the
creaking of the boat. A fish splashed off somewhere to the left,
and Clive smelled something real bad.
Clive was first to break the spell: "Was that, like, Latin
you were doing just then?" Fay glanced over with a flash of
respect showing in her eyes. He'd at least tried to figure it
out. Sometimes Clive surprised her.
"What woud you know about Latin?" answered the old man,
mockingly. "You go to an Episcopal Church!" If he bothered
listening to himself he might have laughed, but Grandfather
didn't listen to anybody.
"All you need to know, children," he went on, "is that I've
given you something today. Something in the way of a small power
that you will inherit sooner than you think ... when the house is
yours."
"You're leaving us your house?" exclaimed Clive in a voice
far too loud.
"In a manner of speaking, yes. But I wasn't referring to
my house just then. I meant your parents' house." They stared
at him. He continued: "You'll have your parents' house after
they're ... divorced."
"That's a lie!" cried Fay, getting to her feet even though
she knew that you're not supposed to stand up in a boat. Clive
was surprised that Grandfather didn't tell her to sit down, but
he just watched her with those terribly cold eyes of his.
"Poor, deluded child," he said, "don't you realize how
inevitable it all is? Your mother is easily hurt. Your father
is easily frustrated. When you're dealing with weak people, it's
only a matter of time. They would have separated a long time ago
if I hadn't saved them with money. That's the only glue
holding them together! I had to pay if I wanted you with me
today."
This was turning into the most perfectly terrible day that
Fay had ever experienced. She didn't think she could hate anyone
in the whole universe more than she hated her grandparent right
then. Looking at Clive, she didn't notice any change in his
composure. Maybe he was hiding his emotions.
Grandfather's withered lips moved in his scarecrow head,
vomiting forth more insincerity: "I sympathize with you. You
want to think that the two of you are the reason they stay
together. Offspring always have an inflated opinion of
themselves. And when your parents break up, you'll blame
yourselves. How ridiculous. Then you'll go off with your
mother, and you'll see your father on weekends. Of course there
will be the same tension between them after the divorce that you
feel now. And guess what happens after the divorce? They'll
find new people to fall in love with, and you'll hate the new
people as much as you hate me!"
The scarecrow stopped talking. The sun had finished setting
while he was speaking. They couldn't see the features of his
face, but only the outline of his head against the darkening sky.
Leaning forward, his dark head was very close as he
whispered: "Don't worry. None of what I just described will
really happen to you. To the world at large, your parents will
remain married; but they won't be real people. They will be
objects placed in your control. They will move and walk and
talk, but they won't be alive. You'll have two parental units,
forged in magic and placed at your disposal, to carry out your
every command. Why, it's every kid's dream!"
"No way!" said Fay. Her nightmare for years had been waking
up to find that her parents had become zombies! When she'd had
her first slumber party, as young as seven years old, all the
little girls had tried to scare each other with ghost stories.
The oldest girl had told the rest all about zombies, dwelling on
an old movie where a maid was forced to comb the hair of her
zombie mistress over and over and over.
Fay could still make out her brother's face in the
thickening gloom. On this lake, the dark fell as swiftly as the
dropping of a curtain. He was smiling! For the first time,
Grandfather had gotten through to him with venemous offers of
role reversals and blank checks. Seized by contrary impulses to
laugh or scream, Fay decided to do neither. After all, the
situation wasn't as bad as it seemed. She'd discovered that her
grandfather was insane. This was tragic to be sure, and perhaps
she and Clive were in danger in the dark on a cold lake with the
man, but none of that plumbed the abyss of dread that would open
up if one word of this nonsense proved to be true. Surely Clive
didn't believe it. She decided that she must be misinterpreting
her brother's expression. The smile was not from desire for
power, but his way of dealing with the same fact that was
tormenting her: Granddad was a bowl of granola.
The annoying thing about crazy people, of course, is the way
they seem to know exactly what you're thinking when they are the
subject of your reflections. "You don't believe me," he said
again. There were no eyes to be seen in the silhouette of his
head so they couldn't tell where he was looking. "By this time,
one year from now, you'll know better. It's summer now. When
summer comes again, then you'll see."
Dropping the oars back into the water, he resumed rowing and
kept talking, as if to himself. "There will be dreams. Then,
after I die, on the coldest day we've had this whole century, the
dreams will get worse. I won't haunt you -- well, just enough so
that you won't forget. The boy will hardly notice because that's
the way of boys. But the girl will suffer. She'll feel every
portion. I'll like that. And then ... and then ..." It was
like a stuck record until he shouted:
"WHEN THE DREAMS COME TRUE, YOU'LL KNOW!"
***
"This is what he promised, isn't it?" asked Clive, staring
at the awful wallpaper. "Did you dream about the nursery?"
Fay touched the wall and said, "My dreams have been a lot
worse than this." She worried that even admitting that much out
loud might be a kind of invitation for bigger and better
nightmares.
"Maybe we should tell Mom and Dad everything," said Clive.
Fay shook her head doubtfully. She had learned from bitter
experience that adults had a strange way of pretending that bad
things didn't really happen. The greater the unpleasantness
concerning a family member, the more likely the denial. Clive
and Fay had decided not to tell about the day on the lake because
they weren't sure they could convince Mom of her father's mental
state; and worse, they weren't at all sure how she would take it
should they succeed in making her believe.
Besides, Fay's trust in her parents had been shrinking
lately, especially after Dad threatened to let Kitnip die if the
vet bills went any higher for a urinary tract infection, and Mom
reluctantly backed him up. (Fortunately, the last treatment had
been sufficient.) Clive had never really believed they would let
Kitnip die. He thought they were just complaining, but Fay had
believed. Even though he was older, there was something more
trusting about Clive.
"They'll have to believe us now," he said.
"I wouldn't count on it," she said.
Their discussion was interrupted by Dad returning to the
nursery. He walked straight over to Clive, grabbed him and threw
him against the wall. Dad had never done anything like that
before to either of them, but here he was, manhandling his son in
front of his daughter. If anything, Fay was more shocked to be
witnessing the violence than Clive was to be experiencing it.
Even before he started screaming that he'd had enough of
Clive's practical jokes, Fay had an inkling of what was going on.
Earlier, Dad had believed what he saw and heard in the nursery,
just as they had. For one brief moment, Mom had believed it,
too, right before she ran out of the room. The Gurney family was
united in the recognition that they were victims of a curse from
beyond the grave.
But legal adults, with taxes and bills to pay, cannot keep a
belief in their heads for very long. They'd made themselves
forget the driveway and the phone. Adults spend so much time
telling each other what the world is not like, and what life can
never be, that when something really strange happens they have to
pretend it didn't happen. They have to blame someone or
something normal for their problems, because extraordinary events
make them feel like children again.
And one thing Clive and Fay had learned early on, the same
as all "good kids," is never to make their parents feel like
children. Not if they can help it. That's what Fay was thinking
as Dad started to hit Clive about the head. Suddenly there was a
shriek. Fay realized the shriek had come from her.
Fay shouted something. She wasn't sure about the words but
her meaning was clear enough. She was begging Dad to stop. But
it was like screaming into a vacuum. She watched what was going
on with a queer feeling of disinterest. It was like watching
television. She could imagine what had happened: Mom had
convinced Dad that what both of them knew to be true couldn't
have happened, and therefore it must be one of Clive's "stupid
practical jokes." Fay had warned Clive for years to cut out such
stuff. He'd finally stopped, but the damage was already done.
Now Dad was taking out all his bottled up frustration on his son.
Then Mom could blame Dad for it afterwards, even though she might
have pushed him in the direction of blaming his son. And it
would be one more reason for the divorce, helping to make the
prophecy come true.
These dark thoughts multiplied as quickly as cancer cells
until Fay had a tumor of anger in her chest to match the scene
she was watching. She felt her emotions with an explosion of
violence, coming over her like a tidal wave, filling her lungs so
that she couldn't breathe. She had to do something! Without
thinking, she ran forward, an ungainly whirl of arms and legs,
trying to pull Dad away. He didn't turn his anger on her, so
focused was he on Clive, but neither did he notice her. She
could have been a vagrant breeze or a mosquito for all the good
she did.
As if one unbroken motion, she was still moving. But now
she was running until she was outside, and still running, headed
for the woods. The dog and cat were playing in the side yard as
she ran past. Since the pets had grown up together, as puppy and
kitten, it wasn't surprising that they got along as well as they
did. Fay wondered, in passing, why people couldn't be as
reasonable as animals.
Wolf, for this was the name Clive had given the medium-sized
German shepherd, looked up from the cat (whose name was Kitnip,
given by Fay). The cat's paws were resting on the dog's nose,
claws tactfully withdrawn. Playfully, she grabbed at Wolf's
silver-grey head with her black paws as the dog pulled away to
see what was happening with Fay. Wolf followed Fay into the
woods. Kitnip rolled over, stretched, and found something better
to do.
So upset was Fay that she didn't notice the dog close behind
her. She was making a lot of noise as she crashed through
bushes, oblivious to the danger of low hanging branches. She was
wearing shorts and cut herself several times, on both arms and
legs, but was too upset to notice.
She hadn't gone very far before she tripped over a large,
gnarled root, and hurt herself in the fall. Turning to rub her
injured ankle, she noticed Wolf for the first time. She was glad
he was there. Rubbing him on his shaggy neck helped calm her
down -- and helped her to ignore the pain. After a minute of
this, she resumed normal breathing; rolling over on her side
convinced the dog that all was well and it was time to play
again.
"You're a good boy," she said to the eager red tongue
licking her face. "I haven't broken my glasses so I don't need
you knocking them off." Rubbing the dog behind the ears, and
then under his neck, she managed to calm herself down.
She was very tired, feeling as if she hadn't had a good
night's sleep since the summer began. Normally the extra
activity of running and especially swimming would be more than
adequate to provide her with uncounted hours of untroubled rest.
But this summer had marked the onslought of her bad dreams.
Sometimes they would relent, and she'd start to relax again, but
they would lie in wait for her and when her guard was down they'd
return, more vivid and disturbing than ever.
Exhaustion stole over her and she let herself think that
perhaps the woods might be a safe place to take a nap, away from
the family, away from Clive's suffering and the crazy wallpaper
and everything else. In a moment, she was asleep.
A new dream was waiting for her. She had felt herself
walking along a path in the previous ones. She would stop or get
off the path when she saw something interesting. This time she
seemed to be drifting through the air. She could see her body
down below, where she was sleeping on the ground. Except that
the trees around her seemed strangely shaped, and were very odd
colors for trees -- black and purple.
A yellow fog rose up from the ground, as quickly as a
thought, and covered everything. She became aware of box-like
shapes suspended in space between her and the fog. These objects
turned slightly, as if in a breeze, except there was no breeze.
As she floated closer, she could make out that the boxes
were not solids as she had first assumed. They were cages. Two
of them were nearly touching, and as they continued to turn she
was able to see the prisoners: Mom and Dad!
There was something different about them. She noticed a
quality that reminded her of the time when they still cared about
each other. Fay wanted to weep, but she wasn't sure this second
body of hers, this dream body, could cry. Nor could she speak or
call out to them.
But there was one sensation she could feel. It suddenly
became cold -- colder than all the snow and ice of the arctic and
antarctic combined. The edges of her dream shivered and the
yellow fog turned into ice crystals. The cages were covered with
frost, turning from blue to white. Then they exploded into a
million pieces!
Mom and Dad fell through the silent sky in slow motion. She
followed them down until they started drifting apart. Then she
was following her father until he landed in a field of wheat
where he picked up a scythe and started swinging it with long,
sure strokes.
A voice without intonation or humanity blasted her senses,
threatening to shatter the frozen remnants of her consciousness:
"Your father reaps wheat for a city. He sweats in noon
sun. He has been at the task for a long while and cannot
remember ever stopping, or needing to stop. He does not remember
his name. He only knows that he must go on....
His legs and arms have learned the way, so he doesn't think
about the work. He must swing the blade and cut the wheat for
the good of his family and for himself. He has faith that if he
does a good job, he will be allowed to rest -- soon leaden legs
can stop moving; soon tired eyes can close; soon he can apply
himself to the serious task of sleeping without dreams.
Inside the city, Grandfather watches. He mutters to himself
that the worker in the field is not nearly industrious enough and
there will be punishment if he doesn't shape up.
The wheat is golden in the sun. Your father thinks this a
pretty color. The golden glow fills his eyes with beauty. He
collapses and dies. Grandfather decides that your father has
found his destiny ... as fertilizer. But one day, the unexpected
occurs. Sprouting from the exact spot where the reaper stood,
there grows a gigantic weed.
Your mother appears, surrounded by little hopping men who
tear at her disheveled clothes. She is battered and bruised.
She cries out to the weed that it's just a little late to put it
all back together again. Then she begins cursing the city.
Grandfather informs her that soon she will join her husband and
the two of them will make a lovely couple."
***
The picture went black. Fay wanted to scream but something
prevented her. The dead voice was gone, replaced by the
recognizable tones of Grandfather saying: "If they can stop
loving each other, they can stop loving you."