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 NINE
AND THROUGH THE WOODS
When Grandfather, that is to say Malak, that is to say the
Dour One, had removed his head from his body and thrown it at
Clive (who used to be his nephew), well, the unfortunate lad
nearly fainted. At least the head missed him. All that was left
was a puff of smoke where the enemy had been standing; that, and
some broken pieces of clay that had been a head only a moment
before. His minions were nowhere to be seen but they hadn't left
puffs of smoke behind to mark their passing.
"How corny can you get?" growled Wolf. "I hate people like
that."
"Like what?" asked Clive, who was shaking so badly he had
somehow missed the "corniness" of the attack.
"He's the worst kind of show-off," continued Wolf, "just
because he has a few tricks -- not that many, but enough to
intimidate other people! Maybe we're not facing real danger;
maybe Mrs. Norse has exaggerated the threat. She could have left
Kitnip and me out of it."
At that precise moment there was a sound of thunder back
beyond the trees. Only how was thunder produced by that very
unnatural sky? Clive did not want to contemplate the emptiness
above. His sense of direction had always been lousy. Despite
this handicap, he was sure the sound had issued from the vicinity
of Mrs. Norse's house.
Wolf became as serious as if he'd just been informed that he
was going on a vegetarian diet. His ears flattened and his tail
went between his legs in the fashion of a dog that had just been
reprimanded by a stern master. Which, perhaps, he had been.
Clive thought this a good opportunity for expressing his
fears. "I don't understand any of this, but I'm glad you're here
with me, boy." Wolf wasn't really listening but Clive kept at it
with dogged persistence. "I mean, I was scared of Grandad when
he was alive, but now he's so much worse. He's not exactly a
ghost, is he? Somehow I don't think anything here is a ghost."
He shuddered at memory of the dreadful homunculi.
Wolf had recovered sufficiently to pay attention again.
""Boy," the dog began, but the sarcasm was lost on Clive, "I
wouldn't know a ghost if it came up and bit me. What's sure is
that everything here seems real enough to sink my fangs into.
But if this is the worst the bad guys can throw at us...." He
caught himself before this line of argument led him back into the
treacherous waters of criticizing Mrs. Norse.
"Well, Clive," he changed the subject, "I'm sure it will
turn out all right. We'll defeat this unpleasant personage you
and I used to know as someone else."
Clive wanted to believe that as wicked as Grandfather had
been, the man had also been human ... and this was now an
entirely different individual threatening the Gurney family. But
Clive knew better. He couldn't forget Pine Lake. Here they
faced the essence of the man, completely fulfilled.
Questions itched at the back of Clive's head as if a
squadron of fleas had taken up residence there. What sort of
world had this been before Grandfather came? How long had Mrs.
Norse been here? Questions without answers are like cats without
mice -- they'll keep chasing the little critters until they catch
one. Clive had always been more impatient than his sister.
"Wolf," he said, "who are these strange people? Where are
we, really?"
The dog's impatience was fully the equal of his one-time
owner: "I've already told you everything I can."
"That's not good enough."
"Mrs. Norse will...."
"I don't want to hear that name all the time!!" Clive was
so upset that he was shouting. In contrast to how Wolf had
reacted to the thunder, the dog was unfazed by Clive's outburst.
Becoming more expert in gauging his ineffectiveness with others,
Clive altered the approach and asked, "How much longer before we
reach her house?"
"That depends on the obstacles we face," was the calm reply.
"Exactly!" Clive raised a finger to emphasize his point,
which looked somewhat ridiculous when talking to a dog. "We may
never get there."
"We sure won't if we stand around here arguing about it."
A sage once observed that you should never try to
outstubborn a cat. This was a sentiment with which Clive had to
agree. But dogs are more reasonable (according to television
commercials at least). At any rate, Wolf was more reasonable,
and he was thinking: never try to outstubborn a teenager.
"There's something you're not telling me," Clive insisted.
"True," Wolf admitted, softly padding over to where the
reamins of Malak's "head" lay scattered about the ground like so
many dry crusts of bread. "I've told you what I understand. If
you're wise, you'll wait for Mrs. Norse to answer questions."
Clive's expression was so pained that Wolf decided to
compromise. "OK, I know a few things. That wasn't really your
grandfather who was here. It was one of his creatures, formed of
the same substance as those little humans...."
"Monsters," Clive corrected his canine friend, "goblins!"
"OK, goblins. This is the same stuff he used to replace
your mother and father. Hey, there may even be a replacement of
myself by now."
"There may be one of Kitnip, too," added Clive in a low
whisper.
"As if anyone would notice," muttered the dog, giving in to
the sort of prejudice that humans are above (except when they are
not). "That stuff your holding. Take a sniff of it, Clive."
Clive did and instantly wrinkled up his nose. "Ugh," was
his honest evaluation.
"What does that smell like to you?"
The Gurneys had kept kept a compost heap in the back yard
from a failed effort to start a garden and grow their own
vegetables. The tomatoes had worked out, and some flowers, but
another dream of self-sufficiency had gone seriously awry --
although not before Clive had been introduced to a most
remarkable aroma. This gray stuff in his hand had something of
the same quality, but only when it was held up close; and the
accent seemed to be on rotten eggs mixed with cabbage.
Wolf continued his explanation: "When that fungus type
material is eaten on earth, it's like consuming a kind of poison,
and the result immobilizes the victim. Here it has other powers.
Malak and Mrs. Norse can use it to make living creatures!
They're not the only ones who can do this, but they're the best."
"Poison," said Clive, dropping the piece he'd been holding.
"Maybe that's the wrong word since it doesn't actually kill,
not even back home. Mrs. Norse said it doesn't do any harm to
eat in this world, not that such pleasant news makes it smell or
taste any better. I guess once it's in your intestinal track
you're safe from Malak or Norse doing anything tricky with it.
Say, I just had a strange thought."
"Just one?" laughed Clive. "You mean everything else you've
been saying isn't?"
"No, kid, what I mean is: have you had to go to the
bathroom since you've been here?"
Clive had to think for a moment. "No, but I haven't eaten
recently and I've been too excited to notice...."
"Yeah, well don't sweat it. I was just gnawing the bone
with idle speculation."
"Huh?"
"Never mind, I said. The important thing is Mrs. Norse told
me if a human eats that stuff, he'll be shown things."
Clive wondered if he shouldn't leave well enough alone
instead of pestering Wolf for more information. "Eat poison?" he
asked incredulously.
"You're not listening," Wolf admonished him. "The stuff's
not poison here. It might even answer some of your million
questions for all I know."
"Are you saying I should eat it?"
"If you wait, I'm sure that Mrs. Norse will answer your
questions, Clive! If you don't want to wait, that's fine with
me, so eat it already! But stop asking me questions I can't
answer."
Clive pondered the many grey fragments at his feet. The
truth was that he didn't like making decisions. Reaching down,
he picked up another pice of the ugly stuff -- a smaller piece
this time -- and held it gingerly at eye level, turning it around
as if he were examining a rare jewel. No, it didn't look very
appetizing.
He felt Wolf's eyes on him. The dog had been forthright
about his motives. Wolf didn't want to be pestered one moment
longer. So Clive should, in good conscience, stop asking the
poor pooch questions about THE NATURE OF THINGS ... or open his
mouth and chew. A little voice was saying: Just say no to
magic ... but in a world that seemed to operate on magic
principles, such advice was inane.
"Look," said Wolf, "if you want to try it, don't worry.
Mrs. Norse says it's safe. I'll stand guard if you do."
"Why would you stand guard?" asked Clive, confused.
"Hey, the food won't kill you but don't forget where we are.
This isn't exactly our backyard." They looked at each other,
Wolf impatiently and Clive bemused. "Well," said the dog,
"what's your decision?"
"OK, OK, I'll eat it...."
"I never said..." began the dog.
"No, I'm sorry," Clive corrected himself. "I meant I'll
make a decision. And my decision is IT'S CHOW TIME!"
If it weren't for the permanent grin with which all dogs are
cursed, Wolf would have smiled. "So I'll stand guard," he said,
taking up his position.
One deep breath later, Clive took a small bite of the dried,
fungous substance. The bad news was that it tasted perfectly
terrible. The good news was that it didn't require more than one
bite to have the desired effect. Clive, first-nighter.
The program wasn't exactly a premiere. He was seeing the
same vision that had so upset his younger sister when she had her
last nightmare: Mom and Dad in the transparent boxes, suspended
over the yellow fog. Snake-like objects were floating all around
them.
Then suddenly the boxes disappeared, and Mom and Dad fell
straight into the fog. Clive wanted to scream but he didn't seem
to have a throat or larynx any longer, or a body for that matter.
He was only a presence, watching, watching ... but unable to do
anything.
He willed himself to follow his parents but couldn't get
beneath the thick, yellow fog. As they had fallen, they'd seemed
to be moving further apart. He wanted to follow one.
His father was singled out for the honor of continued
surveillance. The Clive presence was sinking beneath the mists,
falling; and before he knew it, he could see his father far
below. The man was naked from the waist up, with a reddish
sunburn -- and this made sense, because there was a sun in the
sky again.
Dad was swinging a scythe. Clive knew it was a scythe
because he'd seen one in a comic book about the Grim Reaper. Dad
was swinging the wicked looking blade in a wide arc, and cutting
down what appeared to be tall stalks of wheat.
As the picture became more clear, Clive was surprised to see
that the wheat had faces. He could also hear his father
muttering under his breath, "Have to prove myself ... have to be
worthy of her ... can't stand her coldness any longer; maybe I
can warm her up with other people's blood ... she must take me
back, I want her back, I want my wife.... What's mine is mine,
mine, mine!"
Then Clive was rising again into the yellow clouds, moving
through mist until it was time to descend again. He swooped down
faster this time, to see his mother standing all alone on a
barren plain. She was moving some large, flat rectangular
objects. The perspective made her appear ungainly although she
had always been graceful. The objects were almost transparent
and several feet higher than herself. They had semi-transparent
supports extending to the ground. Although Clive could see
through them, he could tell where the edges were, like drawings
in a coloring book before you color them in. The nearest Clive
had come to seeing anything like them were stage flats on which
he helped paint scenery for the school play.
When Clive was close up, he saw that Mom was not as alone as
she had first appeared. She was surrounded by little creatures
jumping up and down. They were humanoid. They were male. They
looked a lot like Dad.
As each one would bound up near her face, chattering and
smiling, she would move one of the large flats so that it stood
between them. No sooner had she done this than another would try
to attract her attention and she would repeat her actions with
another of the flats. The little creatures varied their
approach. Some would shout, some would sing, some would only
smile and some would frown. Some performed acrobatic stunts.
But no matter what they did, she'd move the tall, thin walls so
that they stood between her and their ministrations.
She never uttered a word.
Then Clive was rising again, back into the clouds, hurtling
along to the next stop. Nor did he have long to wait. This time
he descended to a giant doll house. Somehow he knew it was a
doll house, although its proportions were the same as a real one.
Fay seemed to be waiting for someone on the porch. She was
surrounded by a herd of plastic ponies, big enough to climb on
because they were as oversized as everything else.
The Clive presence was surprised that Fay wasn't dressed in
doll clothes. She was wearing her two piece bathing suit (the
one she'd had to fight with Mom to let her buy with her own hard
earned allowance money). She was observing her surroundings with
an expression of faint disgust. She went inside and Clive's
presence followed. On a pink table in the center of the "living
room" were two large bottles with labels attached. One was
marked FACTS and the other OPINIONS.
Sitting down, she proceeded to uncork the bottles, and
started pouring the contents of the first one into the second;
then she poured the second back into the first. Clive noted a
marked similarity to the episode of Mr. Wizard. Fay repeated
this seemingly pointless procedure over and over, and as she did
so her voice poured out as well: "It's all my fault" -- "You
shouldn't blame yourself" -- "They don't love me" -- "I hate
them, I hate them" -- "Grandfather's a troll and if I only had
the money I'd give it to Mom and Dad ... and that would show
him!"
Clive was more interested in what his sister was saying than
he'd been in the scenes of Mom and Dad. He didn't like it when
the force controlling what he saw and heard pulled him out of the
giant doll house aqainst his wishes. He willed himself to remain
just where he was but to no avail. This had him wondering if the
decision to follow his father had truly been his own. But where
could he be going now? He'd seen Dad, then Mom, then Fay. There
was no one left except....
He didn't like the logical implication. He didn't want to
see some weird shit happening to himself. Whatever was next,
his feeble will power was no longer part of the equation. He'd
been returned to the clouds, moving through the thick mist, and
then he was falling again, plummeting to the very scene he most
dreaded.
Wondering if he could close his eyes this time led nowhere
but to the reminder that he didn't have eyelids at the moment.
He was a disembodied mind bouncing around space as if trapped in
some ultimate Nintendo game. He could no more stop what was
happening than a shout can stop a thought.
He saw himself. He was locked in a box on the end of a
rope. He could see his own face because there was a small glass
panel breaking the smooth expanse of wood near the top of -- now
he recognized the shape! -- the coffin. The rope was tied to a
gnarled tree whose naked branches seemed to form a finger
pointing to the dark abyss over which the coffing swung. The
creaking of the rope was the only sound penetrating another of
Clive's senses that somehow functioned without organs. Whatever
was happening to him in this trance, he couldn't smell anything.
Back and forth, back and forth ... this was more terrible
than the other sights. Dad had the freedom to swing his scythe;
Mom the freedom of moving her walls; Fay the freedom of a house,
and to pour bottles one into the other. In contrast, the Clive
of the vision had no freedom of any kind. He was completely
dependent on external factors.
The creaking rope made him think of the summer he'd gone
sailing with his Uncle Andrew. There had been something
reassuring about the repetitive caress of rope on wood. Maybe if
he could think about that, he could banish this experience. But
such was the nature of the controlled hallucination that it left
no room for any memory or desire to create a picture contrary to
the present selection.
"No!" He had no voice but somehow he would make his thought
heard. "No!" He couldn't conjure up a different picture but
he could remember the timbre of his own voice. "NO!!!" Now he
could hear himself, he really could, and it came from outside
this terrible dream.
He was waking up. But right before he opened his eyes, he
heard a woman's voice unlike anything he'd ever heard, so rich
and comforting that it completely overwhelmed all objections. It
said: "Only you can overcome your problems, but you'll need
help. I offer you what is within my power. By saving your
family you will help to save far more."
Clive opened his eyes. Eyelids. Watering eyeballs
underneath. It was good to be back. Wolf was licking his face.
For a moment, Clive forgot this was more than his good old dog;
this was a new friend.
"No danger to report," said Wolf, "but I'm glad you're
coming out of it."
Clive must have collapsed at some point. Now he stood up
too quickly and felt a wave of dizziness. "Hold on there," said
Wolf. "Give yourself a moment." That was good advice, all
right, as Clive gratefully sat back down. "So tell me, kid, what
was it like?"
Clive shook his head, as if trying to clear away the residue
of his mental journey. "Like dreaming wide awake," he said.
"Fay was having dreams like this for months and months. I'm
surprised she didn't go crazy."
"How do you know she didn't?" asked Wolf, trying to put
humor in his voice, but a talking dog has certain limitations.
The awful expression on Clive's face indicated a misfired joke.
The dog recovered with: "I mean she likes Kitnip best, doesn't
she?"
At last Clive relaxed enough to laugh. He scratched behind
Wolf's ears. The dog part could still be reached in more ways
than one.
"Hey, you know I'm just kidding about my token cat buddy.
So ... were your questions answered?" asked Wolf.
Clive shook his head. "I should have known better. There's
more questions than ever! I'll be waiting for Mrs. Norse no
matter what!"
"And she's waiting on us. I figure if Malak could have
stopped us back there, he would have. Let's press on and get to
the house. Besides, I'm hungry."
"Don't you want a moment to forage for food?" asked Clive.
"You must be crazy! I don't want to eat this nature stuff.
It's even hard to find back home, and Mrs. Norse has promised
treats." So saying, Wolf was off and running before he
remembered Clive would be even slower now until the after effects
had worn off from his experience.
Stifling a growl, Wolf returned and said, "Rrrrrrrest up,
Clive."
While Clive sat cross legged on the ground, feeling stupid,
Wolf sniffed around, obviously searching for something. Clive
was about to ask if Wolf still had a taste for dried up dung when
he thought better of it. Suddenly good manners had become a real
concern. He was worried that he'd be holding Wolf back because
his imaptience had led him to eat that damned stuff. He felt
like his blood had turned to water, and his heart was beating too
fast. Then again, the dog had told him it wouldn't hurt him to
eat it.
"I'm thirsty," Clive announced without preamble.
"Probably that little meal of yours is to blame, but I'm
thirsty, too. And we should have at least this problem solved as
soon as I ... hooray, I found it!" Wolf started digging under a
thick carpet of leaves. Clive watched as twigs and clots of dirt
went flying. When Wolf had made a good sized hole, his front
quarters disappeared for a moment, and there was heavy breathing
from below. When he had reappeared, he had a big, white bone in
his mouth.
"This will fix you right up," announced the dog.
"You've got to be kidding," said Clive, but already Wolf had
dropped the object in his lap.
"Just unscrew the top," said Wolf. Upon closer examination,
the bone was actually plastic, and the top did indeed come off.
There was water inside. No sooner did he start to drink than he
felt much, much better.
"There are canteens like that buried throughout Autumn,"
said Wolf.
Clive lifted his face from the spout and, refreshed, lost
any hope for diplomacy that deprivation had placed in his heart.
"I'm beginning to think there's a lot more you know than you've
passed on," he said, "but don't suggest I eat anything else!"
Wolf was too tired from digging to argue, but not too tired
to resume the journey. Having ascertained that Clive was ready,
the dog set a slow pace. Clive felt so good that he outran Wolf
for the first hundred yards.