Scherzo

A boy on a spring break trip with his friends is visited by the mystic creature of his dreams and past as a child

It is a fine, spring day outside with not an angry cloud out I could see but I almost missed it on account of a cult fright on the radio. Rubber ball and jacks in hand with a cap on my head, I waited for Mother dearest to have her fill of it first before leaving.

Our living room houses a tall, bulky transceiver, several old furniture and knick-knacks on the walls, and a rocking chair with a basket of yarn underneath that all belong to my mother. She clings onto every word and believes in its power to save our souls, taking the news of a cult as nothing less than divine intervention. I’ll need the radio soon so here I am, wishing cousin Deborah from across the street had never shown her the program since first moving here.

His song and His word blares from the machine. It’s painful and gaudy but lets me know the Preacher man is nearly done with. The radio program premieres every day of the week (’cept Fridays when the angels and devils themselves gather round to ear the Cardinal’s game). Mother tends to her half-done sweater began the day she’s subscribed to this program, never having finished it since moving here. Having the small chore no one would notice looked exactly the same as when she started keeps her attention well elsewhere. She sits staring at the pine box of odd gadgets at the edge of the rocking chair that gave up rocking long before I was born. I nearly fall backwards leaning a leg beside it, the jacks clatter when they hit the ground, she scolds me for the noise and for not paying attention without turning around.

A blessing on my part: I’ve made a spinning top by running two jacks at a time through the ends of the orange rubber ball I badgered her to buy me, ruining it just to spite her.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my mother to death but it has been hard believing in the ranting and furious, old men featured of her program. It isn’t the stories and history I don’t completely buy; I simply cannot bear to listen to others more than I feel I need to. I tend to skip over the parts when people speak I won’t likely remember later, like names or faces and such. I do get tired of the coddling in between programs as well, and the lecture to fill me in on parts where so much effort went into ignoring.

I need the radio today! I long to hear the wonderful music program afterwards, especially today when the afternoon air feels so crisp and alive. Mother told me the day I found it that this brand of music is called a symphony and I have to say, even the name is as lyrical as it sounds. She said after her own program that it was a broadcast in a city not far from here, promising me to take me one day to see them in Redfield if I had done well to graduate middle school.

Now I could never remember the names of the songs they played or whatever the curious instruments they used were, both thick European names I could not easily pronounce. I’ve seen a picture some time ago, a postcard of the symphony that plays in Redfield. Many men and women sitting in a large half-ring, all dressed in black caring their odd musical tools. They were individually marvelous but what captured me most was the man who stood in the middle, the leader I presumed because he carried no instrument. He had a thin wand in hand and was caught flourishing it towards the half-ring of people. He was a tall man with wild white hair and I could not see his face. I’ve never seen a stick like that but I always knew after seeing that picture that it was the instrument I wanted to play as an adult, rather than those who were odd and out of place alone

From a daydream admiring that form and prowess in front of the large ring of people I came to to mother shouting at the radio the same words it roared at us. There must have been another group of people watching and listening to the Preacher man speak for when he shouted, asking them for a ‘Hallelujah’ or an ‘Amen’ the crowd gave it to him, my mother followed along despite not contributing much to their volume. It went silent, some gasping, then the Preacher man thanked the crowd wherever this was and walked off stage. Applause came down Mother too fought contain her tears, clapping, still following along with the many people she never and may never yet meet. Looking up I admit feeling impressed by whatever the man had to say. I don’t care for his words, but the emotion breaking from the corner of her eye do leave some to admire.

I went back to my top and nearly have it done. There are two sharp poles on opposite ends I hope will catch the ground in a way to keep it spinning. I believe, after leaving many holes in it, that it should work now.

My timing is perfect as the program finally ends. Mother collects her needles in the basket gets up to put them away for tomorrow. I take the top and give it a twirl, it spins like a dream before I snatch in my palm. She leaves and it falls apart in my grip, I don’t mind. It’s done it’s part and I shove it in the satchel bag looped around my belt. I leapt for her chair and reached after wooden knob above me, Mother scolds me again from the kitchen that I would break it one day falling in such a hurry as disrespectful, no-good boys would. The heavy dial turns with awfully loud clicks but I do it slowly, steady not to pass the right station.

I then hear the same mantra come over me like a spell after a long, hollow pause, the moment after my heart nearly breaks in two. It takes time to come on as it always had and always would, I help fill void by imagining a person sitting up from a booth to leave for the next person but the same dread grips me during. I get it in mind that I’ve missed the station --missing the beginning of the song-- or if it were canceled that day and I just didn’t know it. A fist tightens around my heart and I can’t breathe --then, as it has never failed to appear a minute after five, I hear the bright voice of Mr. Kasen say hello and what we will listen to this evening.

Relief… but I could never pay much attention to this part. I wish I could sometimes but by the time I could tell that it was him, that it was the same ‘hello’ or ‘good evening’ or whatever as it was any other day, I would fade out and not take in another word. Impatient, I would wait until he was done and play the song he described then reappear when it was done to say goodnight. Hello, Mr. Kasem, and hurry the hell up.

The music he played always started slow. I would close my eyes, stand near the radio and spread my fingers over a thinner spot in the bitter smelling pine. Here I can feel the sound of music on my fingers, feeling ribbons of satin twist around my fingers and swing them to the soft melody. Ribbons slide between my fingers and I grip them, try to hang on to each shifting sound, to keep myself within the texture a bit longer, but I never could. They would tie in knots around me and pull me closer when it picked up. They would pass through and rub against my wrists. When I would pull away, when I have had enough and fear the coming finale, my head would rest on a pillow behind me as the sensation becomes thick, envelops me in cloth and pulls me ever so closer. The music is especially slower nearing the end, intentionally dragging on this euphoric agony and the pleasure of it would not allow me to miss a single note as I wave my fingers, arms and entire being to the music.

I continue to do this, wave my fingers through the sound and rock back and forth until it came to an end. I open my eyes and clock shows that half an hour has already passed.

My body becomes not my own and whatever I can sense hereafter becomes dim and distant. I slump into the rocking chair and enjoy most the quilt Mother left behind to catch me. Again comes Mr. Kasem to say farewell then present the nightly news, but I would always feel so sleepy then. To rest my head beside the radio without needing to spot Mother through the crack in the door would be the last treat of the afternoon. My day would be so incomplete without either of the two.

I am soon nestled in the quilt she left behind, hovering between sleep and awake, at peace with everything around me and am partly aware of Mother closing the kitchen door. I know she is only concerned, actively being a parent and protecting me from the things she could not understand but I don’t care enough to put her at ease.

I think she’s reaching out to turn off the radio, I don’t mind that either. I’d only like now a small nap before going outside. I stretch out my legs and hit something. I see her frozen with a rancor I’ve never seen on her before reaching for the receiver. It’s then I hear the breaking news myself.

“‘Yes, we can confirm this latest update. You’ve heard it here first folks, there is a confirmed sighting of a cult in the Redfield metro area. Several men in bloody red hoods have been witnessed… doing God knows what in a condemned warehouse owned by a Latino man, Antoine Cortez. We have him here today to tell us what exactly has happened. Antoine?’

‘E’yes, ey would go to the warehouse where’e ey sell things for building trains to ey… keep papers an ey’ see them dancen’ aroue an sayen’ things I don kno whey… ’”

The man had an exotic accent but was eventually tuned out along with the rest of the broadcast once I knew my fate was sealed. She began to pace back and forth, almost muttering to herself. This struck a nerve with her and I didn’t feel safe being this close to her. I slid off the rocking chair and crept away when she grabs me. She plagues me in kisses and makes me promise I will never leave her side; holding me tight and looks around her, searching for a way out or a hole to stow me in until the danger passes. Mother strokes my hair and I struggle for a few words.

“Mom, I’m gonna be alright. Lemme go!”

“Son, you have to understand --you’re old enough to know this. You must always be in my light of sight so I won’t let anything ever happen to you, I promise. I will never let you go.”

I struggle free and tell her that I have friends to meet. What the hell, I’m not planning on getting any more sleep.

She tells me to cancel, I tell her I won’t.

“Just stay right here, okay? I have your dinner on the stove, honey. Just… just wait right here We’ll pray together, okay, honey? Does that sound fine?”

She leaves to whatever boiling in the other room. Left all alone in the living room with the radio buzzing away on what evil has come into our neighborhood. And I’m just bored of it all.

I get this feeling of guilt but I scoop up the rest of my jacks regardless, secure my cap and step outside towards this exciting day.

“Leroy!” I hear through the door of our building.

===========

I deeply appreciate pockets I realize walking along a dusty path by a fenced up lot a little ways from home. My pockets are very close to me but keep my hands cool and dry on each walk. A wonderful invention this is.

I’m lost in thoughts like these as the neighborhood kids spot me from across the lot. One could think that they waited for me by the mound of dirt within the empty lot. They rush up to me and in that time they took tossing their smelly, shambling selves towards me I deem it a distant kind of justice: I didn’t care much for these guys but they were what came to mind for friends I had to meet today.

“Hey, Leroy! Where you goin’, pal?”

There were three goons here that the neighborhood could do well without in my opinion, I don’t know their names but think that fair somehow.

“Hey… I’m just walking around. Got time on my hands.”

“Cool, pal. That’s neat.” I don’t think he heard me. The bigger one did most of the talking; he had wavy, dark hair and olive skin and a sharp spicy smell to him. I don’t think I’ll ever remember his name but that smell of whatever he last ate or rolled in will always stick with me. “So, we found this really cool cave right over here and it would just neat-o if you could take a look at it with us.”

“Yeah, yeah. C’mon, pal! Take a look for us,” a scrawny boy maybe a year older but a quarter my weight. This one blonde with very pale skin and a messy crew cut he may have done himself; he stuck close to the bigger one. The last seemed like the little brother that tagged along and never said much. I liked him the least but I didn’t know why.

The one with the olive skin and sharp, spicy smell took me into his shoulder, shoved me under his armpit all very buddy like. I don’t care much for it yet not in a position to argue being roughly half his size. He went on to describe such an awe inspiring cave near us with all the spittle and toilet words he could think of while the thinner one behind us sang along at all the right places, and the third one followed.

We arrived in a dry cloud of dirt and I found what they wanted me to see, was dumbstruck and stricken with the fear they were too brave to show. To them it is a cool lookin’ cave to sneak away with Pop’s beer and a couple smokes they found, I knew nothing good could come from this.

The four of us stood (while one absently kicked in broken bottle) at the mouth of a dragon, decrepit and half buried in the dirt. At the farthest of the empty lot was not so much an inauspicious mound but a grave and also one hell of a looker. With the sun casting down at a slant but no where near sunset it’s teeth threw shadows that moved with sinister ease around and over us, but I could only notice them. Maybe because of how afraid I felt in this moment, I think, then realize why these three chums of mine were so eager that I join them.

I feel olive skin edging me closer in, I couldn’t stop him but the shadows beneath the teeth held me in place, although beckoning me to come closer. Closer, and inside where it’s warm. There is suddenly a gust of wind that spills out of the maw, shouldered a strong ocean smell which did little for the lingering rot in the air. Then it inhales, carrying a soft, nice breeze to usher in kindly the new guests. The three behind me were not immune to the malice that rolled like a lazy fog. The hand keeping me from running back to Mother is trembling.

“C-c’mon, man. Help us out. We wanna see what’s inside but see… I’ve got a doctor’s appointment soon so I can’t stay out too long, get it?”

“Yeah, m-me too!” buzzcut said. The youngest moved as if it were his turn to speak but said nothing, he looked at his scuffed sneakers as if wishing he had said that first.

“No, s-sorry but I’m going to have to pass.” I haven’t once looked elsewhere turning around to walk away, far far away but with it never too far out of mind. I knew from the moment the coy breeze drew inward that I’d end up on this very spot, it had to be on my terms with time to steel myself beforehand or never at all. “See… see you around, guys.” I said, already planning for that day: drafting up the perfect date and how many sandwiches to stow in my bag.

Olive skin grabs me and begs with the whiny but confident tone only a bully could pull off that I go check it out for him.

“Oh, c’mon. Help us out! Stop being such a Nancy and just get in there!”

“Yeah, get in there!” buzzcut agreed.

Now was his time to shine, the runt of the litter. He rushed after to push me in, an offering to whatever living or dying inside. I saw this one (or any one of them) a mile away. I caught him by the wrists when we collided then threw him down just beneath the monster’s jaw. I appreciated how much smaller than me he was. Not known what else to do,  I gave him a good kick to the back of his pants letting the b*****d and the other two know, maybe for just today, who not to mess with. He flew a little farther than I meant, landed farther than any of them dared to go. He realized where he was and yelped running back behind olive skin, screaming for it not to eat him. I would have howled with laughter on any other day but I couldn’t feel that laughing so near the cave’s mouth such a keen idea. I’m just as far into this bleak place as he was.

He would wait until he’s safe behind the larger boy to put his muscle back on. “Whad’ya do that for?!”

I didn’t say anything to him. I couldn’t. A fear like paralysis took over me and all I could do was move my feet slowly back to the light where I could breathe again.

“You Nancy boy,” their elder snarled, “you really didn’t have to do that.”

I still didn’t say anything. I kept silent making my way back out the cave. The three ganged up by the exit.

“Nuh-uh. You’re heading back in there. You hear me, Leroy? Huh, Leroy, the Nancy boy?”

The other two lit up and started a chorus. “Leroy! Leroy! Leroy, the Nancy Boy!”

I wasn’t phased by their taunt, not at all by how they knew my name (I just assume that I’m an unforgettable figure) but in fact sort of relieved now that it’s out in the open. I'm rarely ever surprised whenever that same nickname comes around but what was new and refreshing was how honest they were in this moment --plain from the start how they got their kicks, what they wanted from me. Bullies like these with their many faces and many voices are rarely that forthright and it’s a relief to have that happen every now and then.

Since these rejects want me so badly to go where they feared most it wouldn’t seem odd at all to go in anyway. It’s because… I realize then that I was secretly looking forward to the excuse. I’ve always wanted to go but to sleep on the idea how I’ve planned to would only make it stale. I wanted to feel alive and see what no one ever does so frankly, I thank these goons for the nudge to do it.

These guys are asking me nicely, giving me the strong arm to go on an adventure and I sure as hell would oblige.

I slowly turn around, feel the breath of countless ghouls on my face and butterflies in my chest, then enter one step at a time. Their taunts slowly fade to echos behind me as the light of the exit is soon snuffed out and I am enveloped. Can’t say much for how far it’s been or of whatever at work to keep this a secret, some force lurking in the dark. I think of the cult sighting earlier on the radio today and my chest flutters all over again.

============

It was electrifying. With every step I took in pitch darkness I could feel a new level of sensation. Every drop of water I heard fall echoed as thunder. Every step beneath me became a light tang of alkali minerals in my mouth. I touched stones that would quiver in my hands. I felt every grain of sand on them --not just on the surface, I could feel every grain of sand quiver with excitement throughout whatever I could touch. Static crackled and small lights loomed above me: I saw what it was like to be at the center of a thunderstorm. Feeling drunk of vibrant texture and insight into things I could sense but could not see or touch, I felt that somehow it was wrong, unnatural, as if I had found a bottle of something strange but hadn’t spit it out when I could taste it was liquor. The empowering, heightened sensation spoiled when it was left unappreciated.

The way back crept behind a dark backdrop that sped towards me. From the diminished path and farther back came a putrid wind that beat me down, ravaged and dragged me further down a hole I had no business in the first place. The gale was warm and thick with decay, I fought the urge to gag before I felt a presence with me in the cave. I noticed others tossing and turning against me, trying relentlessly to get through me, but I managed to get on my feet. They scrambled on getting past but each without a clue on which way to go, pushing me in circles. The others were featureless, invisible, but definitely there jerking around in random movements. I was in an elevator stuffed to maximum capacity and stuck during a blackout.

The fiends were also very rough when they thought I couldn’t see them: one pulled me by the wrist while another lead me by the ear; some other busybody grabbed a fistful of hair, I went for his neck but another pulled my collar back; grinning murky teeth bullied their way all over me. My face felt hot and bruised and my eyes teared up, I couldn’t take the abuse much longer. Pushing my way through would be my only option --the dark people did mostly seem my size.

My mind made up, feet planted, I stood my ground and gave a hearty shove forward. The struggle stopped and just as soon as they came the dark ones vanished. I was thrown from the darkness cursing my way out onto a dry, dusty floor. I swore the unseen b******s tossed me out the moment they knew I wouldn’t have it anymore! It felt good to wear that pride like a pin patting the dirt off my skinned knees then looking around as my eyes began to adjust to the brighter room. I saw I had landed near a stone balcony above other shifting figures below it. I didn’t hear the chittering behind me until I turned around.

Wearing a cotton jacket here I felt it grow damp at my back. I saw behind me a black void cut in the gray stone of the cave walls. Shapes mixed and scattered about within: an arm, a torso and a foot here and there but once a lingering mass of blank, dark faces. It was terrifying what possibilities mingled and watched from beyond but for some unfathomable reason I felt brave knowing I was safe as long as I did not enter the pitless space again. So I turned away from it.

Below I saw more spectral figures from the balcony, but these were different; these had a little more variety and moved with intention, arranging themselves across each other. Crouching behind a pile of rocks the last thing I wanted then was to interrupt and gain chase of another group. I hunkered down with wide eyes at the sight, it was already a beautiful thing.

I counted twelve men in shining, ‘blood red’ robes around a growing fire. When it got at a log and grown exponentially the men would ease back just as soon, equally apart from each other then ease back as it died down. This was set around a deep pit in the middle of the room, but for a tiny fire I wondered why such a hole was needed. The people looked in uneasy, turning to each other and whispering. One person had the idea to pace around the hole and others followed. It had an immediate effect on the flames. They grew taller and burned brighter. The others caught on then picked up the pace, then the fire changed: it grew taller now but swayed slowly, as one body dancing to a silent melody and it hypnotized me. The twelve men seemed to multiply and blur as they sped up. I could not tell how many there were anymore. I tried to keep my eyes open as smoke gathered at my level, it burned but was a pleasant itch in the backs of my eyes. I started to think it was making me hallucinate when I heard a warbling chime and bright yellow spots float throughout the cave. The sound became something of an eccentric waltz as these people danced ruthlessly around a fire. They jumped in the air with wild abandon chanting guttural words in a language I could not understand. A few of them broke from their circle to fetch more wood. The pillar of flame was a living thing but burning itself out, the people danced to distract from it’s hunger. Some joined to toss in more wood while others continued to dance and jump around it, each time contorting themselves in acrobatics above the pit. It was amazing, it was lively and relentless. I could see a mist rise from several of them I could only surmise was the sweat of their efforts to keep the fire alive. I became drunk again on their energy, swaying myself to quixotic passion. I could not resist ripping off these shackles of casual society to join them, it came as a bittersweet relief when they were soon interrupted.

The flames close to lapping at the ceiling way above them suddenly collapsed within itself, swirling downward into the pit. Everything stopped then, the dancing, the odd chimes that like trumpet blasts here in the cave as they peered within. The shape of a person took hold of the exhausted flames. Swaddled in embers was what I could tell from the ledge a woman curled within herself, asleep in a smoldering hole. Those dressed in long satin erupted after they found someone there; they rejoiced, hugged each other, chanted songs, leaped above the still smoldering pit. They were ecstatic and I couldn’t help but feel the same. However, from here it did not seem they were done yet. They regrouped, equidistant from each other, and moved in a ring around the pit. This next dance summoned Their moves were slower this time around but fluid and in sync. Lights spewed from the pit like a volcano and gathered along the walls in a leopard print pattern. The sounds changed as well; strangely coherent and instead of the random blaring earlier, there were fluttering notes that cluttered the air. It was entirely disorganized and I could not tell among the echos in the cave where it came from, but it was beautiful all the same; this music is cheerful, melodic, passionate and almost silly. I let this new sound move through me and pick me up. It did the same to the woman inside, music revived her. She stood and stretched, did not seem hurt in the slightest. She seemed to be made of fire.

Her arms rolled out and slowly as the setting sun and it stung to look upon such grace in a closed space. The figure writhed and yawned. Standing up she was at least ten feet tall. The men around her were frantic again, bowing at her feet or leaping in the air, shouting praise in their guttural language. The woman took no time to get her bearings, she moved her hips to the music she carries with her and would dance with them to no end.

I smiled giving in to the atmosphere. I couldn’t control myself any more than they could, I became their prisoner but did not mind at all.

A strong alkali taste of electricity and bitter minerals wafted from behind me. I turned to see a legion of bumbling strangers all faceless and covered in soot, shaking in fits at the foot of the caveway. They seemed stuck there, inhibited by the warmth here but I still felt compelled to warn those below of the intruders. I was too late as an unseen creature threw a handful of something dark over the edge and exactly into the pit. The revelers below and I all felt her pain and howled in outrage but her scream was the loudest. Her cry was the sound of every horrid emotion ever felt in my life in a single gasp of pain. A dark stain splattered over her, the woman collapsed in what was left of a flaming throne and she held her legs up to her chest.

I wanted then to murder whoever did that, I had no idea why. The men below scrambled to find the culprit and others ran to find more wood. They did whatever they could to help but I wanted to avenge her. I forgot warning those below of these strangers and I leapt at them myself but was immediately knocked down. On my back the interlopers I had to struggle to get past shambled on right past me. They faintly registered my being there, giving me a wide berth and it was then I realized this was not my fight. I was helpless as they rushed the scene, I could only watch as a battle unfolded below.

The people who sported deep red and the other strangers in black fought each other tooth and nail but did not once strike each other directly. Instead they drew from satchels they kept at their sides of fine powder they threw by the handful. Even amongst a wild, strange battle the movements the revelers in red made were graceful, still so full of passion and intent as they evaded, were attacked and collapsed, yet never made any contact that I could see.

The colored powder clung to their dresses, they fell when they were hit but got back up eventually. Neither party seemed to be hurt very badly, however the people in red were not winning; they were eventually outnumbered by the black invaders. A man in red called for a retreat, the creatures pursued still and followed the most of them out through an opening in the opposite wall. The fire extinguished later in a sickly looking smoke column and I felt a great sadness as I watched the last of them dance desperately around it. The woman within had already vanished. They were flanked by three other black strangers and were hit directly when they threw their sooty black powder. Two fell and cowered beneath them, oppressed in a haze of smoke. Two other comrades in red came to their rescue and drove the offenders away with their own fine, red powder. Some ran after the offending party, one kept behind for the sake of the woman. The other pulled him away from attempting to leap around the pit.

“Let go of me! We can still revive her!”

“No, McCullin! We have to regroup!” The one who saved him said, “The day is lost, we can try again where Della Nube cannot find us, but some other day!”

McCullin resisted, kneeling before the column and said “We should at least retrieve the--”

A boom of thunder came from the tunnel beside me and threw me off the ledge. I saw lightning, my ears were ringing when I hit and could still see it blinking dust out of my eyes. I wasn’t hurt because the fall wasn’t very far but if that dry strike had been any closer I may have been either deaf, blind or dead.

The two left behind, McCullin and the other man, mistook me for one of the Della Nube or were waiting for the strike all along because when I saw their faces again from behind another pile of rubble all the color had drained from their faces. I could see them from here, McCullin had been a negro man and his partner, a white man. I thought it a rare sight but not troubling at all. Negroes here weren’t an everyday people so in that moment I found another place to hide, I felt it refreshing in a way.

I don’t think they saw me fall, they were fixed on the ledge a few feet above me. The wind inside the cave picked up again, letting go the dusty, mineral in the air and a deep, ghastly moan from the ledge. It was the wind but distorted into a low laughter above us.

“We -we have -we have to leave now. We have to leave right now. H-He has found us!”

“But the shard… We can’t… leave her!” McCullin choked up, I felt the same as it became impossible to breathe. The space around us was as thin as vacuum. McCullin strained his hands in the smoldering ash. His friend struggles to pull him away, he moves his mouth but can’t find the breath to say anything. I want to help but I can barely get off my knees. Dragging McCullum out of the pile they reach the other wall and disappear. The atmosphere returns to normal moments after they leave. Cool air then ebbs back in the room and I can breathe but feel drained as spots float on from my vision. I don’t know what the other two saw but whatever presence had been above before, something that the two could feel above me, had left now and left me beneath importance.

The cave was empty now, still, lit by a few fading embers and a mounted torch here and there. Panting, I look around… This secret room of the occult seemed bleak now. Nothing more now than an empty hole in the ground, the magic had been lost when everyone ran away. I find approaching the wide hole a detached interest knowing well that I was late to the party, with nothing to entertain me but a stick I found and the remains to poke at…

I noticed a glow. Before walking over I checked my back for anyone still around. I reach a hand in but a heat wave sends me away. The stick hadn’t done either, it disintegrating into more ash the moment it went in. I wouldn’t give up that easily.

I empty the sack of jacks hanging from my belt loop into my hand, these will do nicely. I threw them in. They weren’t melting or anything so I take another and poke it into a small patch, but it burned my finger and tossed it aside. A moment think later and I take my cap off… admire the nylon and say my thanks. It was easy work sifting through the ash by the bill but sent a plume of rich, pleasant hickory when I dipped in which would surely stick to my clothes and difficult to explain away to Mother. I resolved to cross that bridge when I got there.

Something here was worth sticking around when it all hit the fan for the people in red --McCullum risked his life for whatever they left behind so it was more than an adventure to find it myself. I couldn’t help but imagine what his hands looked like digging through the ash for it… I understand I would have done the same if I were in his shoes. I’d die myself for the chance to see that woman dance again.

The ash drained from the holes in my cap, leaving behind gnarled twists of wood. I moved on through the middle of the pile and pulled out anything that didn’t belong. Leaning over the hole now that it cooled enough to touch with my hands, one hearty scoop from the center retrieved what was left behind. I watched the warm, sparking ash drain away like an hourglass until a single knot of wood stuck to the side of the nylon. I knew this was it seeing how it was the one thing hot enough to melt my hat.

The piece was a lonely, shapely wood chip without the slightest singe, just like the goddess form before that dozed in the fire. I reached for it against my better judgement: strangely bearable and inviting, the space around it felt as thick as reaching into a person’s chest. I couldn’t touch it without blood rushing to my head but I’d be damned to leave it here. With the least of the pungent ash in the cap I tipped it in leather sack that once held the jacks then tightened the drawstring around it. Hot enough to singe the very air it went in easy but sent out lint that had caught fire as the piece entered. I promised not to take this lightly replacing it around a belt loop, an item sure to still have some magic in it. The idea of going to the police with what I’ve found came to mind, it came with a mental slap. The fragment was utterly in the wrong hands but they were mine regardless. I secured it in place, exhaled… then made my way home.

===========

The walk home was uneventful enough although drenching by the time I made it out. I didn’t see, or feel, the dark people again. Those people in black, if they were people at all, terrified me but knew I was safe because the chances of people of those odd caliber wanting anything from a Nancy boy were slim. And for some reason, I felt safe with this lost piece of another world at my side. I figured then, following what I believed were my own footprints, that as long as either party of mystical people supposed the enemy kept the prize I’ve found there would be no need to search for the squirt who saw the whole thing.

They were busy enough looking for each other in that damned darkness, I told myself as soon as I found the exit. The light from earlier today set, replaced by a pitter-patter too low to come from here --it was why it had taken a while to navigate-- but I followed the sound of rain back to the cave’s maw. The dragon opened it’s bony gape from the ground to a torrential downpour from a dark, swollen sky. It was the season for rain, it had explained the thunder from before… but to have seen it strike from so far within? The thought moldered the entire walk home.

I consider myself a humble person, someone who can come across the fantastic and find pride admitting being totally lost, but I felt that the lightning was the only part of this ordeal that couldn’t be explained away. The presence it brought was the the flowing charisma of a much more energetic person, a grand person who ran on unlimited batteries. To acknowledge a newcomer right above the ledge where I had been seconds ago was the one thing I could not accept. A like that is noticed noticed a mile away, not someone or something capable of appearing out of thin air. I felt I was going nowhere fast in my own head, I’m grateful anyway to still have my own skin… and to have merely held audience in a world which had nothing to do with me. Today was nowhere close to a once-in-a-lifetime thing and I should be content to leave it at that. I patted the sack that held my souvenir and although damp in the rain, it still stung to keep in the same place for long.

Then I didn’t think it true anymore seeing my home, the day’s end, in the distance. I hoped that today wouldn’t be the last I’d see of that fantastic world lying beneath the dragon’s corroding skeleton in the middle of town, that it was a far cry from every being enough. I approach my apartment door, ring the bell and think of that fiery, dancing woman.

============

I wasn’t chewed out all that badly coming home after finding other chopping tomorrow’s vegetables with more force than she needed. Never looking at anything the cutting board said she was glad I made it home safely and spoke not a word of soaked clothes although I was sent to bed without supper. Grateful, I was thoroughly exhausted.

In my room, I peeled off the damp layers and placed them in a pile by the door, got on my skippies and slipped into bed. I couldn’t sleep just yet.

I tore off my covers and lept for the pile of clothes. I found the rubber ball still inside, astoundingly as round as when I rolled it in. I was a tad disappointed that it hadn’t melted and worse at the rash decision to leave the jacks behind. However my prize waited at the bottom. I tentatively pulled the wooden shard from the sack and felt much warmer with it in my hands. It reminded me of a dying redwood in our neighborhood that had to be removed some time back: cousin Deborah knew several strong men that chopped it down in exchange for a cup each of her lemonade. It was the wood chipper they rented from downtown Redfield that was costly. The noise was awful but out came these neat little chips of wood that had such a deep red shine I remember clearly. The fragment looked the same but was smooth like it was sanded down. About two inches long and pungent with hickory and exotic incense. There was a swirl in the middle that felt like heaven to put my finger in, just as I remembered Lisa-Ann’s navel from down the street to be when we traded secrets and secret places. I felt bliss, caught sleeping and waking up with the sun shining just so on my face. I felt sleepy then. I placed it on my drawer by the candle I used to light my way upstairs. There was a blackout while I was away and I hadn’t the faintest inkling returning home.

My shorts were on the same drawer to dry out in time for tomorrow. I got into bed expecting the candle to snuff itself out sooner or later. Now with the covers pulled to my nose and facing the candlelight I question falling asleep without putting it out myself. I still feel cold from the rain so… I can’t say if I’m in a position to debate. The glowing inch of candlelight danced until I nodded off.

I had no way of knowing if I were asleep for long as light crept into my eyes and stung my face. I could see through sleepy eyes a hazy, yellow blob on my nightstand knowing it couldn’t be anything else but my shorts on fire. I felt like laughing at the situation than put it out, I felt like laughing for no reason really. There is an overwhelming feeling of being joyous and happy lying beside the light. I have the faintest image of the wooden shard catching fire and that it jolted me awake.

My pants were on fire but it hadn’t spread to anything else, the fire instead lifted about foot above the drawer. It spun and doubled in size. Spots of orange light shone as a leopard print around my room and spun like a globe. I could smell a strange perfume as it grew.

She was coming. I had to accept it. I wished there was time to prepare, to kiss my mother goodbye and give the other guys the finger. Familiar panic of an eleven year old set and I was frozen under my covers. I at least had the sense to make it seem as if I was sleeping but I saw through my eyelids it settle on the nightstand radiating heat at the size of an average dog. It was just sitting there, waiting, watching me.

And I had so many questions, damn, with no doubt she would kill me. Gobble me up in a shortage of things to burn. I wouldn’t have minded. As I decided before, if I could just see her dance… Just for me.

I saw through a slit in my eyes that the flames grew tall than wide. They took shape, womanly shape. It stretched then poured over my nightstand like a waterfall. The entity solidified into the buxom woman from before, with her legs draped over my drawer, her slender arms propping herself up with her head back and chest in the air. She wore a long flowing dress the color of blood that draped over her crossed legs, a mighty generous hemline and a slit at her skirt revealing shapely legs that made her no taller than me. She wore such a peaceful look as she finished taking from. Her hair was blonde in tight curls that only came to her shoulders, with loud streaks of red running down it the same color as the bright satin of her dress.

The stranger, this goddess, seemed content to keep sitting there, one leg nodding above the other perhaps to a song in her head. Lightning struck somewhere far off and I had never seen a person --albeit a creature rather-- react in such away to the sound. The woman leapt from her spot to the middle of the room, hissed and nails bared like a feline towards the window. She stood there for moment longer, made such a horrid pose but even this way was just as beautiful. She relaxed soon after then turned to me. This was when I screwed my eyes shut and my heart pounded.

I could not see but could tell by the heat and light she gave off that she bent over me, looking at my face, maybe searching for where best to set on fire I thought. She took her hand and caressed my cheek, pushing a hair back from my forehead, made cooing sounds I knew well from the many aunts I was obliged to meet. Instead of pinching my cheek and telling me how chubby I used to be the woman leaned closer and kissed my forehead. It was excruciating. I wanted to feel that again on every part of me

She leaned back, stepped away. I could tell she tried to make sense of where she found herself. I heard her walk to where my dresser and mirror are, then a creak of whatever heavy put on it. A sucking sound filled my room and sapped the warmth and joy she brought with her, the room grew cold. I stood up from my bed after confirming that she was no longer with me and found the wood chip --still glowing and sending dim heat-- lying there before the mirror. I exhaled staring out the window, the sweeping rain and trees that bent to the wind, feeling so lonely and loved at the same time.

============

I could smell the beach from my car --no, it was the salt. I could smell brine from the road. There was also a putrid smell of sea life but of the four of us it was a kind sea breeze that reminded me to come by often. We’ve only drove down here for spring break, at a quiet cove described by friend of the family and relative, cousin Deborah. It was my insistence that brought us here.

The salt and rotting smell I did not mind grew stronger. I thought I had gotten that window fixed, or was it a bored passenger playing with the reel? She sat back, way back in her chair, trying to line the edge of it to the horizon; she had half a conversation between the two of us and not a care in the world for the other two --oh, how Donna grew tired of her friends and couldn’t imagine why we believed she had a gift for listing. Trying to match the tip of the window to the razor’s edge that divided the horizon, two expanses of sea and sky beyond before the sun dipped any lower, making it all hurt to look at. I also saw how the wooden shard lined perfectly with the sun, both hanging on invisible threads hidden in waning sunlight. I had the piece fashioned on a necklace with tweed below my rearview mirror. I decided to put it on then for the rest of the evening, just on a whim. Several things were blurry about that event the better part of a decade ago but dancing was branded into my mind.

The sounds of the beach were nice too, pleasant. Waves crashed and a solitary bird voiced its cries. I know Donna beside me hated it and would have rather stayed home but I wanted her with me, wanted her enjoy herself and smile at whatever dumb joke I made. The rare occasion of a smile brought her here, the one she hid behind ribbons of hair the color of charcoal. Donna had on a brown leather jacket and hearts and peace signs on charms braided in her hair which I thought were strange but loved her for anyway. She reeled the window up then down then back up again. I could see the fun in it myself but see, I was driving us this early noon.

That aside I knew she would have a good time when we got there although she would never say so, I focused on the road and faraway seagull’s ballad. But if I could just turn down this awful radio, I could finally give into the sound on the way to the beach.

This wasn’t my usual station but was the all-time fave of the two in back: cousin Dolores’s daughter, Karen, and her bronzen chew toy. He had olive skin beneath the tight, cotton shirt and a sharp spicy smell I recognized but never mentioned. The specifics were lost --or were never heard-- to why we had to listen to this but it had something to do with winning tickets for… a something that forbade me from turning it off. The window was low and the car smelled salty again. Whispers of the distraught bird were barely heard over the football star’s dramatic recount of a score. It tempted me.

A peek behind wouldn’t hurt, nor would a hand moving from the wheel to the shift then… then to the thundering clicks of that damn grandpa knob! I was careful to space between each click, the volume softened but way too slowly! The car jerked a bit to the left as my arm was caught in a manly grip.

“Not-gonna-happen.”

“C’mon. Just a little.”

“Nope. Want those tickets, man.”

“I’m not gonna turn it off, it’ll just be for a second!”

“Not riskin’ it.” He returned the weary radio higher than it should bear then gave the back of my head a playful tap.

“Alright, okay. I’ll remember that.” I grew a cheeky smirk and asked my side passenger for permission with just a look. Donna shrugged but grinned anyway with the same nasty plot in mind. She looked back, Karen scoffed and rolled her eyes as she put on her seat belt. This interrupted a well-deserved foot massage from the only person in the moving car without a seatbelt.

I pushed down on the accelerator and pumped the brakes. The car lurched forward, not enough to cause ringing but definitely in the ballpark of pissing someone off. We arrived anyway and I needed to stretch my legs. I snatched the shard on the tweed necklace on the way out.

“You're dead!” he ranted trying to escape from the space behind my seat.

“Wait! Mikey! He was only playing!” my cousin pleaded, “…well at least grab some stuff first!”

=======

It smelled awful. Just awful.

I made sure to surround the wood with large rocks like cousin Deborah showed me the time she took Mother and I camping --Mother complained the whole trip away but I learned lots anyhow. This I remembered had been the worst part, pouring just enough of foul smelling liquid in a circle, “not just on one spot.” After pouring the kerosene I stood back with the can placed at a safe distance away then lit a match, I did it with my back turned which was something Deborah said never to do with an open fire. I spotted Donna sunbathing on a lawnchair as the other two unpacked… A moment later I felt the match burn down to my finger.

I didn’t throw it in just yet. I studied it privately horrified of the potential. I watched it dance on the end of the match and understood that if I allowed myself to be captivated for too long I may end up with a burn. It did not make sense why something so beautiful, a butterfly caught in a waltz, would wound me if given the chance. I meant earlier to come up with some act throwing it in at the right time, my cousin being deathly afraid of fire would walk by at the right time. I replayed the scene in my mind for the moment she was near but now, staring at the fire…

My shoulder jerked forward and I dropped it. The match kissed the kerosene and my breath (and eyebrows, I’m sure) was taken from me as the kerosene kissed back. I fell on my back gasping through cracked lips because where I felt the heat most was centered right on top of my chest, where the red fragment dangled from my neck.

“Woops, bro.”

“What is the matter with you?!” Karen roared behind me.

“I didn’t touch him!”

As Mikey also caught fire my eyes began to clear. I didn’t feel a thing after my chest loosened --but then again no one does until the next morning-- however what I can saw now is here and rising. I get back on my knees, panting, to a face staring back at me. I recognize it and was speechless if I had the air to talk.

She rose from the circle of stones head first, then shoulders, then waist and supple hips. The woman of fire stood over us as embers blew on the wind. A shock enveloped me and I couldn’t move. If I ran anyway, I’d trip myself --if I spoke or screamed I would stuff my mouth with sand. Attention shifted from her to my friends all in a line behind me. They were petrified gawking at the shapely bonfire, I hoped deep inside that they were as glad as I were to see this. I never told anyone about the time in the cave, I never planned to, but I’ve had to choke the urge back down each time I remembered her. She was the punchline I always wanted to tell but was afraid no one would get.

The embers drifting around us swelled and grew wings, hovering over then through us. Music started to play.

It was shy, then a louder, playful melody that reminded me of flowers. Sound bounced and fluttered like a child, or a butterfly, or a puppy in a bed of flowers. I couldn’t decide or think so I stopped trying. The music went on from where it felt the fireflies were singing and the woman, the volcanic queen started to spin, no… dance to the music that followed her. She swayed her hips to the tempo and conducted thousands of red doves to the music. They met as a single wave and moved as one to a new fervor in the air. The sound changed from light, carefree music to this other battle cry of a song. It was destruction, it was fury, and I loved it.

I was on my knees looking into the red gypsy’s eyes that looked beyond us. She didn’t register us yet, I gathered my breath and courage and spoke to her.

“What is your name?” I whispered.

She didn’t hear me, had only a blank stare and froze in place. The woman hadn’t aged a day since that night in my room. Whatever trance held her passed and she looked down to me, groveling at her feet. Her smile was a caring one that only distant aunts and uncles could do so well. Seemed she was embarrassed to show such kindness because when she noticed she was staring, she shook herself and saw as a group. She had such soothing voice.

“Who dared take my charm to a filthy place such as this!?” Karen started to cry and Michael fell over helpless in keeping his eyes open for very long, buffeted by the wind that rolled over us like a warm current. “Where am I and who hast summoned me here?!” She was furious but had a subtle snicker that I thought adorable. She started towards us, I was frozen in place but Michael yelped scrambling away. The woman saw him and laughed shaking her head, she walked on to Donna but flung the lawnchair she hid behind when the woman came near. I was afraid for  both their safety as the being flinched when it connected; the chair however with a metal bar for a framework crumpled then clung around her like a wet coat.

The woman peeked through her hands but smirked when it fell in a bright burning heap. Donna ran but the Queen was faster catching her by the collar before she got very far. They were face to face, Donna was terrified. I did not believe the woman would hurt her --I think she’s just playing with us-- but was glad she had only a bathing suit underneath. Several patches of fire had already sprouted on her jacket but neither seemed to notice much.

Michael had long since fled for help I think and had taken my cousin with him, I didn’t see them leave but wouldn’t have cared to join. In front of me stood the goddess I idolized and a girl I had a crush on. With no idea how this would turn out I wanted dearly to see what would happen next.

She resisted but the woman held her still and pulled her close. Donna calmed some looking into her eyes and couldn’t look away, her eyes just wouldn’t obey. I could only dream of what she saw in them then. A mist spread around the two, it pulsed and changed color then slowly disappeared. Donna slumped onto her chest. The woman who was almost a head shorter than her hoisted my friend into her arms and cradled her like a child. She carried her towards me.

I had half a mind to applaud like a maniac when she came to me, towered over me cradling my unconscious friend. I let her come. There was that smile again, of an aunt who’s watched me grow from an infant, as she knelt over to me, laying Donna between us.

“Oh, my. How much you’ve grown in these few years… Because, you see, Leroy… Is thou surprised I know your name?” Her voice came as echos from the sand and ocean air. It reverberated and melted my insides. “I have been watching thee for a very long time --well, not watching exactly but I have spent a lot of time here… close to your heart.” When she reached over to my chest I could already hear a pounding in my ears. She touched me and sounded poured out from her again: it was my heartbeat, weary and excited from this romantic ordeal.

“What do you mean?” I asked her.

“I have felt thy longings even before you have. I tasted all you have tasted, seen and heard everything thee has had to experience. ...I have been in your shoes, as thee would put it.”

I was dumbstruck but had a good idea of what she meant. I remember many occasions where I wouldn’t just feel as if I were being watched but as if I ate for two whenever I had the wooden shard on me, always hanging by tweed above my heart. I remember finally going on that trip downtown to the Redfield Philharmonic. I felt warm the entire time then, Mother and Dolores who had taken us hadn’t cared much for the music but I felt strongly that it was better now that I had someone very close to me to share this with. Someone I cared about very much was with me then but was the farthest off on whom, warming me up and keeping my heart open to new experiences. I had the hunch but never knew for sure. Seeing the woman who I still had not known what to call stare with a mother’s adoration made all the sense now.

Knowing right then as the perfect time, for even I knew we were still connected, she told me, “Thee has asked for my name, I feel ready now to speak it for names themselves have power, you must know. I would wish not for such a secret to fall on deaf ears… I am called by those of your kind by…” She paused. “You may call me by Scherzo, from a language men in thou time still speak, closest to the language of us antient… forgotten people. It is a word that describes… a short song, light and beautiful. To others it means a light tale,” Laughing at a private joke. “Yet, mind you, these are not who I am. Nor should simple items such as titles act as so, but it shall do for now.  I have lived for thousands of years and have taken many forms, once as the shape of a creature of flight, I believe ye kind would call that as Phoenix, my favorite since these eons. Although, this shape…” Moving her hands down her figure taking great pleasure of it. “would fit me just as well.”

“Child, as thee would know, I am not from this world. And I cannot leave. I am in a ways, stuck here.... Do excuse me, I am not partial to expound again to those who wouldst care not listen. Pardon,” She made to get up but remembered something else. “Also… as thou shouldst know, I am alone in my view of such small children of thou kind in a bright light. I understand if you cannot beleive me but please take heed to what I say: I truly love your kind and would never hurt them unless unkind circumstance wouldst force me so.”

Then Scherzo stood up, she seemed annoyed and paced some, and suddenly thrust her hands into her body. She swelled and looked almost pregnant, in a sense she really was. Scherzo gave me a wink as she blew up like a balloon

After a moment shuffling around in there she pulled them out; what she dragged out were the other two that turned tail what seemed a lifetime ago. They emerged unconscious and awoke with a shock by the time they hit the ground. Karen sobbed again, Michael shielded her from the woman.

“BE STILL. I command thee!”

They froze seeing her in disbelief as they could understand the stranger. I didn’t blame them at all.

“I did not choose to return again to such lesser things, so accept my grace and SWALLOW THE SALT THEE HAS PAID FOR!” She erupted, her hair flickered upward as she spoke. I was sure they wouldn’t run away again.

She walked towards the two, then past them and to Donna and I with her in my lap. She leaned over and pressed her hand on her cheek. Donna’s otherwise pale skin tanned at her touch and became very hot in my arms as if she was having a heat stroke, then tossed and turned, mummering things I couldn’t make sense of. Her touch was caring and there weren’t any more fires, but Scherzo held such a sorry glance brushing a hair from her forehead.. “I wish thee strength for what lies ahead, there will be pain… But I do believe in thee.” She spoke so only we could hear, then smirking at me “If brings any aid, this one here has had many-a dreams of thee and would do him well for you to live.”

“What… What are you doing?” Michael asked behind her. She rose and faced him.

“I gave her my gift.” She giggled at another private joke, “She will serve well as my eyes and ears until thou hast fulfilled my deed. To thee, it will seem that she is sickly and wan. I’ll have you know that she truly is, and that her life is in my hands to do with as I please unless thee bids as I command.”

“Just tell us what you want!” Karen cried.

“If thee wouldst ask… It does well to listen, and listen very closely. I am exiled here to this small stone thee claims as his. I wish to leave…. I wish to return where I need not a title yet am always well known, where I have lived a thousand years before. As thee can see, I am not one among you. My place is of light, is of energy that destroys and creates small worlds where thee resides by the mere thought, but also a place where peace and beauty is all that reigns… And I long to return from this exile.

“I am shackled here as penance for a careless joke, a misunderstanding and the threat of a new enemy. It does not concern thee much more of why’s and what for’s. You are strangers to me and I am stranger still to thee having summoned my presence with nothing to offer but perplexed eyes and absent devotion. Help me return or…”

Scherzo waved her arm towards Donna and I with her in my arms. She grew even hotter and moaned in pain. Michael and Karen were aghast. The message had gotten through.

“Remember well that I have the girl’s life in my hands. I will visit thee in many forms so… keep thine eye’s peeled, as you would say.” She giggled pointing to her own. We watched her afterwards, wandering up and down the shore. Seeing her walking around aimlessly, taking in the environment and stretching her legs, made me think that whatever speech she had in mind to say was over sooner than expected. This goddess had time on her hands as we huddled near each other. The other two stared daggers into her but my thoughts were of her nearing the ocean tide, and what would happen if she walked into it.

I again tested a bond between us as she snapped back to look at us; the two flinched under her searing gaze but Donna was unconscious and feverish. Moans began to form into words, she spoke of a fragment… and a soul that was in pieces. The didn’t make any sense but I could at least understand her now.

When the idea of Scherzo touching water came into my mind, she looked at us, stood closer to the shore and as if on a silent command, the tide obeyed and lapped at her dress. Short columns of steam came when they touched but nothing drastic ever happened but was gorgeous as she lifted her skirt to let her feet touch the water without getting the dress wet. She giggled a few more steps in and my heart fluttered at the sound.

Michael and Karen were in a kind of shock, they were calm and everything but said nothing to each other or me, both clutched tightly to each other. A thunderstorm rolling on towards us where the sun used to be meant nothing to them. The air felt dry, dusty and cold then so I knew it wasn’t Scherzo’s doing.

She coiled like a jungle cat: her arms were up in front of her and her hair stood on end. Ocean water steamed around her ankles, danger was approaching. She turned to us and the other two reared back against me.

“Forgive me for leaving so soon, forgive me still for overstaying whatever welcome but it is imperative we leave at once. There is nothing for you here now. If thee prefers to stay, you wouldst only fiind council with thou own doom.” There was panic in her voice as she urged us to leave.

“You don’t have to ask us twice,” Michael mumbled under his breath. He brought Donna off the ground, never turning his back to her, and Karen held Donna’s hand as he carried her away. I stood behind to watch. The edge of the storm was just overhead and raced in our direction. I knew immediately that it was the second entity from that day in the cave. How could there not be more of people like Scherzo? This is what I came up with days after my time in the cave. If I hadn’t done much before then, I put effort from that day on into listening for the sounds between notes knowing firsthand there was another, more brilliant world beyond ours I would never see again.

Yet here we are again. At the precipice of another adventure I force myself to stay, to embrace whatever Scherzo would meet with bared claws. For gratitude, for dumb luck, and for seething with envy how Donna was given the ‘gift’ instead of me.

She turned to me from the oncoming storm in wild disbelief. I could see a growing yellow dot on the stormy horizon, it was growing fast to the woman’s dismay.

“No, my child! You must not think such things!” She raced towards and clasped her hands around my head. “This is what summons him! He his a harbinger as I am, yes, but of another kind. The path that he would lead thee is no means of an adventure!”

She was frantic and wild with fear. Her eyes, so much like Mother’s I could see, a person desperate for an escape, somewhere to stow the young away as the danger passes. The dot on the horizon swelled exponentially since and looked a mix between bolt of lightning, a man, and a tornado coming towards us. The yellow glow then triggered such a sensation of fear and anxiety, a palpable urge to ruin and destroy even that far from shore and that creature was the source of it all. Fear rooted me in place but an eagerness led me on like the strings of a puppeteer… I wanted to meet this newcomer. Scherzo pulled me back down.

“Yes, He is coming, but please… look at me. Trust when I tell thee that He has no love for those who find sanctuary in fleeting sensation. He is an end to sensation, this other is death and nothing else. Oh, how I would have loved to show you the fantastic and new things thee desires but… we must say our fare-thee-wells for now. It is in thou power to take me away from here for he will follow my aura always and will erase what has it not.

“Please, take me away from here. Thee knows the way.”

I did. I didn’t want to do it. I don’t want her to leave yet.

“But you must! ...you will see me soon, trust me, servant who loves me the most.” she said.

I had to believe her. Whatever she was. I was helpless to do anything but. She was right to call me her servant because I may just follow her to the ends of the earth. She slid her arms around my neck and locked them in a bridge just as any other pair of lovers would. Her body was close to mine and I knew what she wanted me to do. With her this close to me, I could finally touch the woman who often visited my dreams besides Donna herself. I placed my hands on her waist, felt the energy underneath and her quivering as she let go a moan. She was as human then as any one of us.

“Please… Be quick with it.” But I wouldn’t in a million years. I took my time pushing into the well of her abdomen, the space where she dragged slumbering Michael and Karen. Inside felt a burning ichor the texture of syrup at a rolling boil. She let go another moan and squeezed around my neck as I found what she meant. I wrapped my fingers around the wooden chip with my left hand, my right searched around in the warm void. She knew I was playing as thunder broke in the distance and waves quivered under the madness of the living storm. Scherzo pulled my hair as she exhaled in my ear. The pain was neither sisterly or motherly.

I pulled both arms out and she collapsed into ashes in my arms. I was mortified as they painted my front and blew away on the wind. I would have howled if it weren't for the sting in my hand. The shard was there and sent me a pinch telling me to get a move on.

I stood back facing the tides. The water itself tried to flee the yellow monster’s wake. It’s distress and irrationality could be seen even from here. The thing, He, was angry at yet another missed chance. He moved around, frantic, but soon abated from view. He may not have been gone for sure, the beach stunk with his presence. I heard Michael calling out to me.

“Lee! C’mon!” he said gathered by the car with the others and carrying a few of what we brought here. The presence remained but I was done with this place just as I were of the cave so many years ago. This beach, this secret cove seemed violated to me and had lost it’s allure. The seagulls were gone and I could hear nothing else but the gaudy sound of thunder as lightning tore across a bleak, cloudy sky. I traced my finger around the spiral groove without thinking about it. Then I turned away for the car.

I don’t think I’ll ever visit again if I could help it.

============

The drive on was eventless and drenched in rain once again. I don’t think Karen knew where we were going much less saw the road as Michael and I sat with Donna in the back. She was on fire.

Donna rested across our laps beneath a pillow of her charred coat in Michael’s lap. Her fever took a turn for the worst slowly coming to but in a way aware of something hurting her, writhing in place and soaked to the bone. He racked his brains for something he could do.

Michael had a canvas of water on him and was wetting a rag for her forehead. This went on as he spoke in exasperated tones on what he knew about fevers from his father’s books; no one said a word yet of what we’ve seen on the ride to wherever town. I believe he was just trying to fill a void.

The entire time I burned with envy of what she was going through. Depraved, I know, but… moving my hand over her ankle sticky and warm with sweat, I couldn’t help myself.

She moans; Michael complains of running out of water; our driver whispers something about a diner on the way. We pull up after a quarter mile at a neat looking burger shack surrounded in a pocket of thick pine. There were only two cars in the lot, both beat up and overtaken with rust, and nothing else in any direction of empty highway but the mist we rode out of. I shook whatever dampness I could from her jacket exiting the car and slipped it on her. Michael and I sat Donna up by her pits, rousing on her feet she murmurs something about a man who loved trees. Or a man who was a tree, I couldn’t understand. Karen killed the engine and we walked her inside.

A very well fed man stood behind a counter as a bell above the door rang. A waitress next to him at the bar who I could hear chewing gum from here complained of the rain getting in as he spoke.

“H-hey, she don’t have the, the oreos or nothin, do she?” The cook said. I knew it was him by the butcher's knife he polished. The diner, far from a busy day, was no more the size of a boxcar on a train. Behind the bar through a large window was the kitchen humming with life and the grease rolling of a fryer working, the air was full of the smell. A young boy tall enough to stand behind a grill had the time of his life slinging patties in the air and catching them on a narrow spatula. I trusted him not to drop our food strangely.

We looked at the senior cook and wondered what he meant brandishing the knife towards us. The waitress explained with a sigh having to bear putting down the magazine that he asked if the skirt who couldn’t stand any by herself’s was sick. She had a rich, wet accent I couldn’t think was just the chewing gum.

“No, it isn’t polio, genius.” Karen said to the man. I noticed her shivering and swerving some into other lanes but in a matter of finding shelter raw nerves were the last thing we needed. “We were attacked by this angry, red broad and--”

“What she’s trying to say, sir,” Michael stepped in, “is that we had bought a couple of sandwiches from this lady down at the cove we were stayin’ at, see, and… must have gotten a raw deal when our friend here came down with something.” Spending this much time with the pig headed guy I’ve grown to admire the way he knew just what language to speak to get his way around.

“Oh… I didn’ know about alla’ that stuff. Mighty sorry about that. Been hearin’ whispers around about no-good folks givin’ out free stuff. And, hey, it’s like I always say: alla the best stuff ya receive in this here life,” Giving a whistle from the gap in his teeth on ‘receive’. “should always come with the price tag first. Nowa… why don my niece ovah here show you atta table while I get somethin’ warm to put inya, huh?” Whistling again he gestured to the waitress. She groaned again shoving a menu in our hands and sat us at a table. The owner moved on to wipe down a tall glass cup as she went on by, smiling to himself.

I grow to like a place like this. Not for the food which I’m sure would be fine and plenty warm (although not much to write home about) but for the people I’d have to work with. It would be easy to see each customer as a new story to hear. We passed by an old couple grinning warmly at their steaming mugs of coffee and knew by the sweet burned smell that they would agree.

The waitress, who wasn’t that much older than us we saw, sat us down at a quaint booth by the window of the small boxcar diner, far from earshot of anyone else. The upholstery is red imitation leather with whitewashed walls and everything else checkered with red or white linoleum. Even the menu was candy striped.

Moving some did well for Donna condition, being well enough to sit herself in the booth. Michael sat next to her, I slid in across her as Karen closed me in. The waitress (Holly I was close enough to read and thought was funny in a way) asked what we were having holding a tiny black notepad. I told her to give us a moment and ask later for it really was a little soon to have made up our minds I explained, but she stormed off anyway.

We sat like that for a while longer. Donna had her hair draped over most of her face and it bobbed as she nodded off. Michael was the first to get the ball rolling.

“Okay… now what the hell was that thing She sounded like she walked right out of a history book. What’d she want with us?”

“I dunno. There was so much fire.” Karen kept shivering.

“I think she was some kind of alien, from another planet, you know?” he explained. “I’ve seen my movies. That thing probably came down to lay her eggs or something. Donna, lemme see where she touched you.”

Donna shrieked from his touch knocking her head onto the window. We looked at her.

“I’m sorry… I have a headache.” resting her head on the cool glass and traced a finger around falling droplets on the other side. There was a dim smile through her hair plastered on the side of her face.

“Okay. I’m sorry… you just rest, okay? After we get something to eat, why don’t we find a clinic or someone to get a look at you? Something more than a wet rag anyway.”

“What? Are you kidding me?” said Karen. An older gentleman in the booths behind turned towards us. She continued in a whisper, “why would you want to do that? A hospital’s just going to ask questions we don’t have the answers for, some they wouldn’t believe that is.”

“We’ll make something up.”

“Oh, yeah? And what are we going to say? She had a heat stroke in the middle of a thunderstorm?”

“We still have to get someone to explain all this too. A cop or something. We need to get Donna some help and warn someone about that witch.”

“...was beautiful.” I murmured, Michael spied at me in suspicion.

“How are they supposed to help? They’ll just think we were on a bad trip or something. All we have to do is never go back to that place again.” she said, “And besides, Donna’s just fine. Look at her.”

We watched Donna paw at the ends of her hair skittering around on the table like a puppy on a lawn sprinkler, mumbling about sunflowers and masks on fire. She did look stoned.

“Donna?” I asked her. “Could you tell us anything about that? What was that about sunflowers?” She stared blankly at a red tile on the checkered table.

Our eyes on her when she spoke she said, “Here she comes with the sippy-sip.”

Holly returned with a tall, pink milkshake in the middle of a metal pan with a generous helping of whipped cream and double serving of cherries on top. “Hea. Compliments of the sheaf or whateva.”, placing it in front of her.

“Well? How’s it to ya?” The Sheaf called from across the diner.

I dropped her straw in for her and she took a sip. She closed her eyes and sighed as she relaxed her shoulders. “I taste… blueberries… like the kind my grandmother and I used to pick when I was little before…” she said with a frown in concentration. “Mint. I taste mint.”

“It’s strawberry… ” he replied. I thanked him for her and he turned away. Some color returned as she drank.

“Are you okay now?” I asked. She looked up at me with another blank stare then lit up when something sparked her mind. “The Sunflower Man! No, not him… The other man. We need to see the man who took what belonged to The Blue! He watched him die…  ” Her strength wavered again as she swooned against the wall, this was all still too much for her. How I burned with envy…

“What are you saying --slow down. What man?” Michael asked tapping her cheek.

“There is… someone she wanted us to meet, I… and it’s gone. I don’t remember his face but I’m telling you, I saw where he lives! The Red of the Woman Parish showed him to me. She said… showed me that you would know him, Leroy, when you met her before. She wants us to find him.”

The three looked to me. I felt Karen staring holes in me especially. “Lee… what did she mean by that?”

I didn’t say anything but stared at my left fist on the table, then at my cousin with a sheepish smile. In my hand I’ve moved my finger through the grove of the wooden shard this entire time.

“I h-have no idea.”

“You know. I thought the two of you looked chummy.” jeered Michael. “There anything you want to get off your chest? About --what’s her name-- Schizo?”

“Scherzo.” I piqued, eyes darting between the two of them.

“The Red holds me in her hand, and the boy holds The Red in his.” Donna sang, she offered me her hands with eager wonder. Tangled in this just as much as I was, I didn’t see any harm handing it to her. I let her take the wooden shard but she hadn’t taken it just yet.

“Have us to hold, Signora della Rosso, and we will feel no harm,

Have us to wield, Donna, so we can give it.”

I’ve never heard that from her before but she spoke with a hoary glee I found exciting before she took it in her hands. She dropped it without a moment’s notice on a red tile. It spun like a top and bright colors spilled onto table then drained beneath it. The light condensed into a picture: Scherzo watching us this entire time in the linoleum reflexion. Karen covered her mouth to hold back a scream.

Signora della Rosso waved, silently calling out to us with the enthusiasm of a distant relative from an airport gate. We couldn’t hear her but watched as she jumped from tile to tile across the surface, only coming to light against the red tiles to do a cartwheel and would vanish when she hit a white square. When she was done the image slowly faded away. The piece reappeared .

Donna chuckled with her head resting on a window, too tired to applause.

“That… really was something.” Michael said, and I was happy. Karen was not.

“So you have seen her before.”

“Karey, let me explain--”

“Lee. Stop. You… you called her here or something, didn’t you? You brought that witch here with that chip.” She made for the piece but I hid it away in my shirt pocket.

“Don’t call her that. You don’t know what she is. None of us do. ...Yeah, I’ve seen her before but I didn’t call her here, okay. I think it started when I was lighting the campfire”

I then told them everything I knew about her, but watered down some on a few details: the way she moved and the explosions I felt inside (I assumed they felt the same to save time). I also mentioned hearing the cult sighting on the radio and how it was likely the candle fire that brought her the second time. I only left out suggesting that the thing on the farthest on the beach could just be the same other force I felt above me in the caves, being I was the only one who spotted him on the beach.

Karem, as quick as a whip with a tongue to match, glared at Michael who took a moment to take in my story. She said, “So, Mikey. You know that this was all your fault, right?”

“What now?”

“The fire, hon. You pushed him in. Do me a favor and join him next time, ‘kay, hon?”

“Well… damn. Said I was sorry.”

I spoke up before plates began to fly, “Donna, where did you hear those words?” She leaned on the glass with the straw aimed through her hair, but unmoving only had it dangling from her lip . “Donna. Look at me.” I said. “You said things earlier we couldn’t understand. ‘The Red’, ‘The Blue’, ‘Sunflower Man.’ Do you remember those things?”

Clearing her throat, she said “I don’t remember… But this other man… I remember seeing him and his house and and… this other place he works at. It’s all kinda like a dream now. The Red --Scherzo put it in my head to find him for her. She did other things too but… it’s like she doesn’t want me to know it yet, like having something in the corner of your eye before… someone else drags it farther back. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

Instead of questioning her any further part of me wanted to hold her hand, tell her to forget all about it. I had half the mind to hold her then, I knew she was scared and maybe wouldn’t mind, but was still so eager to know more about that other world. Donna is my best source of information but it seemed she was too tired to play along. It was almost annoying.

“It’s alright. Just… you just get better, okay?”

“Nursery.”

“What?” Michael asked this time.

“Where he works. It was a nursery. I remember a big room full of small trees… and a candy store but that’s even more cloudy.”

“Well, alright. Cool. So, I guess we have a clue then, gang.”

“What, are you talking about? Michael, we’re going home.”

“Wha-- no, I’m interested now. And besides… I think that lady was kinda hot. Get it? Because of the fire?”

He flinched and rubbed his leg underneath the table, even Donna in her torn state of mind mouthed ‘wow’ and rolled her eyes. I watched her snicker through her forest of hair and charms, she caught me staring and I saw she was different. She didn’t just look better, but changed in a way I couldn’t pick out until I looked away. I knew for a fact her eyes are brown, thinking of polaroid of the three of us before meeting Michael. I remember the day and I remember the picture, but the splash of blue-green at the edge of her left eye was either new or was always there, hiding behind the veil she put up with her hair. I felt I was blushing, she smiled warmly then went back to her free milkshake.

I asked Karen to let me out, her busy arguing how Michael has payed less attention to her. I went to the desk to order something when the man of the old couple spoke to me behind his cup.

“I can smell it on ya, boy.”

“I-I’m sorry?”

“Don’t you know you gotta have a permit to be settin’ campfires?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. We’re not usually around here.”

“And I think I know the feller yer lookin for but I have to say, I really don’t care much for the theatre type.”

“Oh, you hush,” said who looked like his wife. “Seein’ Annie a while back gave you the time of yer life and you know it!”

He looked up at me from his low booth with such a defeated look, “...And they never let you forget it, kid. So I’m gonna make this short, ya hear? Cause I know how much the folk of yer generation always manage to have somethin’ worth rushin’ off to. There’s a man in town by the name of Jason, he’s a richun who has a home here bout’a mile and a half that’a way.” He pointed the way we were headed. “Owns a nursery but doesn’t see a pleanty’a business so I’ll bet he’ll be open if you knock enough times, I’m sure. Heh.”

“Okay, then… Thank you very much.” This was incredibly helpful but… “how did you know we were looking for him? Sir… what else have you heard?”

“Now don’t you get that accusin’ tone in yer voice now, kiddo. All we heard from ye’s hollern across the room was that ya’ll are lookin for a nursery. And don’t you worry,” speaking to the elderly woman, “Jason’s a mighty fine friend of ours. Ain’t he, Muriel?”

“Sure is. Gave us a little ol’ cherry tree as a present at our weddin’, that fine hearted man, and made us just a fine pair of rockin’ chairs on our last anniversary.”

They giggled together only how lovers could in their twilight years, sharing stories and jokes with just a look. Romantic but a bit mushy for my taste. I thanked them and made my way to the table. There I saw a tall order of burgers and fries in front of each seat. Holly just sat herself at the bar by the time I found her, deep again in a magazine I’ve never heard of. I promised myself to leave her a hearty tip when we left.

“Looks like we’re on a road trip, everyone.” I said to the group, “Say, when did we order now?”

Karen allowed me back into my spot without argument, busy herself pouting at the situation. I find her once again tamed knowing Michael has worked his magic. He wolfed down his burger and Donna only picked at hers, still working on the milkshake.

Mike managed to make out of a full mouth that they were on the house again. Donna took a fry and placed it in her mouth, savoring it with a smile than actually chewing. It was a little weird seeing this, weirder still pulling out my wallet for the tip. I knew it was empty save for my licence.

============

It was Mike’s turn to drive and it had nothing to do with Karen’s abating temper, merely fed up with his grumbling about having to tip for a meal they never paid for and implied it would keep him busy. She kept him company up front on our way to Redfield. I sat with Donna in the back.

Asleep again murmuring of islands and sisters made of clay and crystal, she wheezed after each breath and I found it troubling. This was a good time to get her something to wear besides the small (although modest) bathing suit. We guessed her extra clothes were left behind at the beach.

She writhed again, sat up and leaned against my shoulder. Cooing like a baby as she slept I wanted nothing to disturb this moment.

“Hey, is this the place?” Michael said. We arrived at a store with many plants in the window beneath a sign, ‘closed for the evening’. Mike stopped the car and I felt bittersweet to have found it so soon: a townhouse above the store and a staircase beside it. Past the store at the top of the stairs hung an odd carving above the door. It was a wooden carving of outstretched rays around an empty circle and other spinny circles etched beyond every other ray that remind me of snowflakes. Michael said it was a cool looking crown.

“Well. We’re here.” Karen grumbled. “Now what?”

I carried Donna by my arm beneath her shoulder up the stairs. She was getting worse and could barely keep her eyes open but walked right past us to the door, knocking three times on one side and four on the other. We were confused until we heard quick shuffling behind the door. It flung open halted by the lifted chain.

“McCullum?!” the man inside yelled.

She shoved her head in the crack and raved, “No, but tis ye Queen instead!”

The man inside fell over behind the door. We shrieked at the voice of the volcanic queen, but it wasn’t her. Donna giggled with us gawking at her --then collapsed, and I was more than eager to catch her regardless of whichever one it was.

“Was a mean little trick your friend here made but I have to say, if anyone could pull that off so well, it would be… well, someone in your position, I believe.”

Dale Jason (but just Jason outside of court), an impressively tall man without a slightest hint of a slouch, was open to letting us inside despite having shaved off a few years of his long life. His home was decorated with all sorts of wood carvings, a few too old to have been carved himself: tribal masks, many photos of him with all sorts of foreigners, strange wooden sculptures and other exotic things ornating his walls of places I’m sure I couldn’t pronounce. The only pieces of furniture he had in his small home were a couch, an overstuffed chair, and a coffee table and bookshelf which were certainly his handiwork.

He walked out of his kitchen with steaming mugs and handed Donna one first. She took a sip and made another sigh, “Peppermint. I love it, thank you.”

He took a sip himself and said, “It’s Earl Grey, hon, but I didn’t think you’d know the difference by now anyway.” He dabbed at her nose and she giggled like a child.

“So, you know what’s happened to her then.” I said after he took a seat on the love chair.

“Yes. As one I think you’ve met before would say, I could smell it on you. Andrew was it? An old fellow with something of an overbite?”

Michael, “Yeah, that’s him. The nosy geezer at the diner.”

“Hey, watch it kid, us geezers stick together. Otherwise we’d cause a sinkhole.” It was corny but we laughed anyway. “But uh… yeah, thought so since I don’t have very many people coming by all too often. Sheryl was the outgoing one with plenty of friends… I was only in it for the ride.”

“Is that your wife?” Karen said pointing to a photo of them on the mantle beside the bookcase. He handed it to her.

“Yep. That’s the Missus. She was the town’s theatre director, you know.” He said with a tone of pride. “Was never that into moving pictures myself but… she had a way of roping others along with her.” Karen handed it back but he gestured she hold on to it.

This perhaps a decade ago, an adorable scene of a garden balcony and him, Romeo, caught calling out to his precious Juliet. “She’s very beautiful.” she said, he thanked her and we sat quietly as he serenaded her once more in his memories.

“So! Let’s talk turkey since I don’t think you’re here for an audition, which I’m sorry to say, has been closed for a couple years now.” We chuckled at that too. Then he grew a hardened look and was nothing but serious. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you? Lady Red.”

We took turns filling him in. Donna gave what she could but was barely awake for her part of the story. I added what I remembered of when I first saw her in the cave. Jason watched me speak with a grin he hid behind his fist.

“Donna told us you knew what’s happening to her. So… there.”

“Right right, now… how did that make you feel?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, man. I’ve spent most of my life around actors so I know the real thing when I see it. Get it? ...I can see it in your eyes, and how you took a little longer than the rest of these cats to tell me about our Lady Red. Don’t you cut anything out when I ask you again. So tell me. How did it make you feel?”

I didn’t waste a second. I looked him in the eye and said, “It made me feel like I was on fire. She made me feel alive.”

He stood sooner than a man his age should and took a knee in front of me. “That’s what I’m talking about, man. Stan, the man. I knew ya had it in you.” He gave me a pat on the back, “Anybody with a nose could smell that little bit of hickory on you kids, anybody a mile away. You kids really wreak of it. But I saw that fire in your eyes, get it? You had that look on ya that said you found what you’re really lookin’ for. Get it, Stan, the man? You’re wanting a little more than cream and sugar in your cup. You need something else to put out a fire in your belly. Tell me that I’m wrong.”

“Think I’ve seen you before.”

“Huh? Wazzat? You sayin’ I’m wrong?”

“I know you.”

“Yeah… I’m right on the money, aren’t I?”

“You were there that night.”

Jason stared deep into my eyes, I let him. “Yeah… and I remember seeing you too, kid. How’d you like the show?”

He stood up slowly (with an pop from his knee) and walked over to the fireplace mantle where another photograph sat. This one was much older.

“And here I thought that it was just some tot who lost a bet. Picked the shortest straw, right?” The other three saw an old photograph with mild surprise of the much younger Jason, his wife, and the old couple from the dinner in the group at bottom of a narrow waterfall. A thin cascade falling over a haven like canopy. The people dressed in the same red, body length robes I described before. Sheryl was the one treading water with her bare feet, barely lifting the hem of her dress just as Scherzo done when the tide came. My jaw dropped when I found the negro man, a little more than a kid our age here, standing with them, Jason held close by shoulder.

“He’s… His name is McCullum, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. My best friend.” he sighed. “And you just so happened to catch us on the worst day of my live. And seeing my wife take a nightstick to the head at a freedom rally nearly broke me in two, but that was only a close second.”

“But… Leroy said you all were okay.” Karen said. “I mean… you all made it away from the dark freaks. Even that woman had. We just saw… what’s her name, again?”

“Scherzo.” Jason and I said in tandem. He smiled and clapped me on the shoulder.

“It’s not that. Yeah, we were all fine and dandy, but you’re not getting it. The others… My friends and I would have gladly died if Lady Red wished it… although I can’t really think of why she would, but that’s not the point.” He took the frame from Michael who had it last and dismantled it. Turning the picture around we saw was was written on the back, ‘Tomato Trip, Toronto 1918’.

“You look like you were in your twenties here, so that would make you…” Mike began.

“Don’t hurt yourself, kid. I’m old so drop the math. You’re friend here’s asked what’s been going on with the one in the bikini here and I didn’t say. Know why? I’ll tell ya-- also, remind me to get her some clothes in the back later.

“It’s ‘cause I didn’t think you were ready to know. Frankly, I still don’t.

“Ya gotta loosen up, man, and get with the times. Start looking past the things you shove in your face. There’s a whole nother world out there, always in front of you, but one you just don’t want to see. One you can explain away or can’t bear to grip by the horns. There’s another place we only talk about in whispers and stories, a place that’s fluid and intermixing and has no name we can chain up with our grown up words. A place that Scherzo calls her home. But no. No no no! Hold the phone! There’s something ya gotta do for me before I go any further!”

We were shocked by this flood of emotion. Who we considered a reserved, pensive widow  brimmed with passion and anger inside. I knew what he wanted and what truths he would hold for ransom until he had it.

Locked on to his pulsing, furious eyes, I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out the wooden shard by hardened remnants of string still around it. “Alright… Since this was yours in the first place, anyway.”

He flinched at it’s faded rose color, Jason knelt again and whispered before he touched it, as cautious as Donna was at the diner.

“Have us to hold, Signora della Rosso, and we will feel no harm,

Have us to wield, Donna, so we can give it.”

Then I placed it in his cupped hands. He opened his eyes to regard it with such relief and said, “Yeah. This is the real deal, alright. Thank you.” He collapsed in his love seat.

I asked him what that meant and if the ‘Donna’ part has anything to do with this.

“Oh, that’s just a hymn we’d say whenever we’d pass this around, change hands or whatever… anytime we’d prefer keeping our fingers glued to our hands. And ‘Donna’ is just Italian for woman, not that big of a coincidence. Yet… some things tend to come around again, being trapped in these cycles of the grander scheme of things. But don’t ask me, I’m no poet. …never understood why they prefer that language so often neither. And you know, it used to be a lot bigger than this, too.”

He moved his finger through the spiral groove and it seemed to calm him down. “There’s this story about how she got here, no clue if it’s accurate. Scherzo had… pulled a prank on a guy, another of her kind, and it didn’t turn out so well. For revenge, Scherzo was nabbed and forced into eating a seed from this world. Not too long after the seed grew.

“Folks there have a thing with keeping either world separate. You know, ours is ours and you and your folk can stay far the hell away-- a real segregation, sound familiar? So then when she was caught trying to remove it, Lady Red was banished to this world. And the seed kept pushing out, growing stronger and eventually taking up roots.”

“So you’re saying she turned into a tree?” Karen spoke aloud. “Sounds like some bad Greek tragedy.”

“Yeah, it does pick up that vibe along the way, doesn’t it? Well, after that happened it in a way shackled her to our world, near some place said to look over a great city. And this here… is the last piece of the wood within her.

“The members of my group spent decades growing in ranks, guarding the place where she slept and trying to get her back where she belongs. But we were caught by acolytes you saw before that worship the creature who did this to her, the one we can call Man Yellow for now. Although we were all safe and sound when the dust settled, a part of us died that day. We never had the heart to try again or the health to even attempt it later on. There were fifteen of us in all, a sorry bunch of feeble, heartbroken geezers. You’ve now met the fourth and last of our… fellowship alive today and barely kicking, so you can guess how it’s been for us lately.”

We four, our own little fellowship, were sorry to hear about his friends. “Do you think… This must be what she wants us to do.” Karen said, the slight enthusiasm was a shock to hear. “I think we’re fit enough to do that dance or whatever, maybe we can help…

“Think I know just the person to help you, missy.” Jason said this and she smiled. Aunt Deborah said it was her smile that made her really seem part of the family.

“But, sir. You still haven’t told us what is happening with Donna.” I said. She perked up at the sound of her name, hair plastered to the side of her face and not entirely following along.

“Man, you’re really a worry wort.” he said, Michael laughed. Jason stood up, paced behind the sofa. “I get your burning to know what’s next but I tell ya’, it’s going to ruin the surprise. See, the members of my group were never ones to come together one day around a fire with a couple of brewskies and go, ‘hey, you know what would be just a shazzy idea? Wonder if there’re any marooned deities around to jump about and worship, wouldn’t that be grand? Wouldn’t that be swell?’ No. That never happened.

“What really brought us together was a shared understanding, a familiar and potent experience so tangible we could it pass around as if it were the old baseball glove of the time we caught a fly ball in the ninth inning. What brought us together was an event that made us one with each other, one she bestowed on each of us personally. It was a change that incinerated who we were so from the ashes of our decrepit selves could rise up a new and enlightened form. Your bikini friend is going through that right now. It warms up my insides something fierce seeing that happen again, it does indeed.”

Jason went around to the closet beside the door, a long room which hid a rack of costumes like that of backstage a theatre, and tossed a long white dress as soon as he went in. Michael caught it but Karen recognized it first.

“No. Absolutely not. We’re not taking your wife’s dress.”

“Oh, stop it.” He nagged as he fell in the worn chair. “It doesn’t fit me, anyway.” Michael and I laughed, Donna nodded off again. We recognized the dress as what Shyrell wore in the photograph. Up close it was as beautiful as it was season appropriate, breathable with down sown between the fabric.

“Much appreciated, but we have a change of clothes.” Michael lied offering the dress back. “We just… didn’t have the time to put ‘em on because of, uh, what’s been going on.”

He gestured we keep it. “Nah… she’d be honored. Besides, a whole lot of good it’s gonna do as moth food. Try it on in the other room.”

Karen thanked him and led groggy Donna elsewhere with the dress. By the time they were gone Jason leaned on the edge of his seat and spoke in a hushed tone.

“Alrighty then, let’s get serious while the ladies are busy. It’ll take some time to squeeze into that rag so feel free to ask questions: you guys are going on a trip to a store called ‘Sweet Sunshine’ that’s quite a trip south of here. McCullum owns it and will be more than happy to put you guys up for a couple of days. It’s a scenic ride along the coast, the miles will go by in a blink but the last stretch of the road will be hell, no doubt about it. Your girlie back there will be in the muck for a while but sooner or later you’ll have a full scale H-bomb go off in that tiny car of yours out front.”

His warning came as a shock but Michael however nodded at this coming to light.

“It’s more than just a fever, sure, but it would make sense. I’ve read in papers my old man made me read about patients acting out their bad dreams before coming around. Hallucinations, like a someone caught on a bad trip. You saying this is gonna happen sooner or later?”

He took some time to think to himself, himself rummaging through less than cherished memories for any purchase of advice. “As one soon makes their way from beneath the smoldering house of who they once were… what troubles a man, what was likely too hard to tackle then, always has a funny way of sticking to a person climbing out of the rubble.”

“So… you mean, repressed memories and stuff?”

“In a sorts, yeah. Way back when, when we were still getting the hang of fire--” we chuckled. “I was something of a real snot-nosed brat. Never listened to nobody and thought it a pretty good day when I had the chance to break something over a guy’s head. I was a mess.

“Our ladies will be around any time now so I won’t bother with a history lesson besides that I met our Lady Red on accident, just like you kids, when she gave me her gift. If I was a real prick then, I sure as hell wasn’t a handful of daisies on the last stretch. Your friend will be dragging out a lot of dark, dank things on her way out and I need you two men, and Karen if you get her up to speed, to keep a brave face when it starts growing legs. It’ll get loud or maybe violent, real fast too; it’s different with everyone. And listen to me with both ears this time, it’s crucial that you do not respond when she speaks. Even if she’s hollering for you by your Christian name, keep your comments to yourself.”

We asked him why and he told us that it had something to with interrupting the image of whomever visits her dreams hearing one person but seeing another. Holding her down if she began to thrash about was fine but try not to hurt her. We would also never take her out of the car in case she wandered off.

“There’s one more thing I’m a bit foggy on myself. I’m betting Donna will be about done with this inner sabbatical of hers before you get to McCullins’, you’ll know when after a few changes… I don’t know much else to tell you --breaking in the new guys was always his thing, you see-- but McCullin will definitely help you through it. It’s the part that not a lot of people are strong enough to see through. When this new part comes round, I need you to go to him immediately, he’ll know what to do. I trust you guys well enough to find him before then.”

Karen and Donna stumbled from the other room and found us trying to map out what may come next with tea still steaming in our laps.
I see her and nearly spill it getting up. Picking at places where it hadn’t fit quite right, she was stunning regardless in flowing down, backless in long white sleeves and a modest neckline. She said it was stuffy and wasn’t her color. About to walk towards her Jason caught me, whispering in my ear, “Take a look at those peepers of hers. Mine used to be blue.”

I knew what he meant before I saw the rust of his eyes. The bright brown, almost red staring at me the farthest from the blue confirmed that something new at the diner. I walked up to Donna, said the necessities about the new dress as Michael would too, trying not to gawk at her eyes being two different colors. The right is the same dull brown of before but the other became a dazzling turquoise spreading to the other side. I counted small flecks of green in the corner when Karen told me to stop staring. The girls laughed and I took the embarrassment like champ, too soon to share what I found. We then sat down and finished our drinks, allowed bouts of small talk to fill the void when it came.

I’ve had this flavor of tea before, Earl Gray, and it was much sweeter than I remember. Deborah had Mother and I over once during a short lived health kick spurned by the benefits of herbal tea. This flavor was the highest on her list.

“What did you sweeten this with, Jason?” I asked. “I taste honey.”

“Yes. You’re right. Was the only way I could stand it.” he said staring off into space across us. He took perhaps his second or third long sip from his mug and told us that he actually loathed tea but broke into his wife’s last stash as he remembered her.

============

A few made me smile I’m afraid to say.

It was my turn to drive but I only made it to the state limits when that changed. The ride was smooth and as placid as Jason described in whatever small talk we could fit in, beautiful even as we rode along a freeway beside sunlight shimmering above a virgin beach. Silence carried among us however in our car as Donna lying on her back and burning up poured her heart out to us in dreamy murmuring .

“They said it was lame, they said it was lame, the other kids said you were lame but I really wanted to pet the rabbit, Mr. Magician.”

The directions were simple enough and there were never many cars on the road. We had the salty beach air waft around us with the windows open a crack with it getting a bit stuffy.

“Bunnies… Bunnies… I remember you called them your rabbity assistants. Someone asked if we could hold them after but I don’t know who it was. And I’m sorry I didn’t… say something? Now! S-say something! Hurry, he’s going to hurt it!” She would writhe when she raised her voice but it wasn’t a problem, Karen was just about her size. It was then that she suggested from the back seat, whispered very sternly to the driver that I take a break. And I did, I spent the rest of the trip to to where McCullum lived holding Donna against me. It was heaven while she burned like hell, stewing in sweat in worrysome bursts of incoherence. I tried my best to air out her dress without looking or adjust her shoulders to avoid a bed sore as she went on ranting her dreams.

“N-no, see, someone… someone said it was just a trick. Smoke and mirrors, whatever that was. I told him to shut his yapper and the teacher told me the same.”

These went on for ages without the faintest hoarse note. She spoke throughout our trip apologizing to this ‘Mr. Magician’. She spoke of other things, other apologizes and laughter at jokes she was afraid to laugh at with everyone else. We could do nothing but listen, learning more of her than she’s ever cared to share with plenty more I couldn’t understand. Beyond the sobbing, the spontaneous laughter and furious arguments too afraid of what others thought of her to have then, ‘Mr. Magician’ was who she spoke to the most.

“We both got in trouble. There’s no such thing in elementary school no matter what the teachers say. I was in trouble and trying to watch. You only wanted to show us something neat…

“The rabbit was in the hat all along and no where small enough to fit in your sleeve. They weren’t impressed but I tried to watch… You made a joke about rabbits and I laughed! I snorted, laughed with the funny feeling in my ...nose?

“The other boy made a joke about rabbits too. A joke that made the teacher’s cheeks look as red as the rabbit’s pinky pink eyes… I’m so sorry and I didn’t mean to.

“He went to the corner but he didn’t mind. There were mean drawings and rubber band slingshots there but teacher wouldn’t care! Wouldn’t care!” She fought against me again.

“Then there were two. Puffy the rabbity assistant and Puff or Pufferton Goober, Jr. when he was being bad and his mother was cross. And your fantastic trick with the two boxes!

“And… Thank you and I’m sorry, Mr. Magician. You chose me because I had the prettiest laugh, you said. I know it was because no one else wanted to help. Thank you and I’m sorry.

“I saw Mike with the paperclip and rubber band and I’m sorry and I’m sorry.

“I just wanted to hold him a little longer. He was so soft, and warm, warm fur rug by the fire. I never held a rabbit before. He was so warm…”

Donna fell asleep after that, thank God. I didn’t want to hear anymore. We stopped at another burger place but I didn’t get anything or stretch my legs with Michael and Karen. I could tell they had a lot to talk about so I let them. I was tired so I fell asleep with her. There wasn’t anything else to do but wait for the next thing.

It came when it was nearly dark out as two people shook me awake. Donna was having convulsions and Michael kept telling me to hold her jaw still. Karen sped through a strange, devastated town I couldn’t recognize hunched over the steering wheel. There were scorch marks along the ceilings of buildings and around windows. The skies were dark and clear and there were no lights out. I thought for an instant if Scherzo had beaten us here.

Donna shook as bruises bloomed over the wrists she slammed into me. She foamed at the mouth and wisps of something as hot as steam hung above her clenched mouth, it burned the hand that I kept under her chin. Michael yelled at the driver if she’s found it yet.

Karen hadn’t answered but swerved in front of a lonely building in front of an empty lot then skidded to a halt. A young negro girl stepped out and ushered us in. “In here! In here!” she cried.

Michael and I carried her inside. Karen kept behind, hyperventilating in the car. The sign above read “Sweet Sunshine” in faded words on a wooden sign, on it was was the same wooden cut out of a hollow star but with the drawing of a smiling cartoony face. Inside was a ma-and-pa’s candy store with aisles of homemade sweets. With the lights out and everything dim beneath in the dust we kicked up rushing in, sat a man who stood up from a rocking chair at the farthest corner from the door. He moved as a distant tidal wave and every creak of his joints rang like the bell above the door, skin of the rich dark of newly varnished wood.

“And it’s been a goodly mout’a time, too. Just got off’a the line with --wouldn’t you believe it?-- frady-tree Jason, himpsef ‘bout you folks. C’mon in an’ take a load off, if ya’ would.”

He instructed us to place her in the nearest aisle. “Necie! Go an’ grab sum watah!”

“Yes, Grampa Cully.”

Michael met my eye at the mention of ‘Necie,’ also conveying the unlikeliness that this old man has ever met the chef at the dinner, him or his own Neicie. There was no time to get lost in coincidences however. Karen just came in, lightheaded and clutching her forehead and the side of the door.

The niece returned and handed a cup to him, splashing some as she hurried towards us. Throwing his cane aside the elder placed the cup on the floor, taking Donna’s head in a large, weather beaten hand. She shivered between spasms that ripped through her body. He pulled back eyelid clicking in disapproval.

“Uh-huh… Cutie pie’s a little overdone, ain’t she?” Although rolling back into her head, her eyes were a totally new color. Locks of emerald unfurled over a cat’s eyes caught in the dim setting light from the window. They sparkled with a disdainful gleam to see lucidly enough, only for a moment, to not care much for the person staring down at her. You’re not him, I thought she mummered.

He looked to us and said, “And ain’t there sumthin’ of mine wit’ ya’ll could pra’ly help?”

I reached in my front shirt pocket, felt the warm spot within the spiral then handed it to him, but before he took it he bent on both knees (which by his grimace was hefty effort) and recited the hymn Donna and Jason knew well and spoke earnestly.

“Have us to hold, Signora della Rosso, and we will feel no harm,

Have us to wield, Donna, so we can give it.”

I placed it in his hands and he lowered the shard by the tweed rope in the cup. It jumped, hissing wildly spewing steam and scalding water around it. The little girl squealed and hid behind Karen, stealing glances from around her at the scene.

“C’mon, ye spoilt missy! Just take it! Atta, girl… Just keep at it now.” The water calmed and the shard fell to the bottom, soaked up all the water like a sponge. McCullum paused before taking it out, he handed the shard to me.

“Put this on yo girl.” he commanded. I wouldn’t take it yet. Bending a knee I closed my eyes and said the hymn as I remembered it.

“Atta, boy… Would’a been squealin’ at yo missin’ fingers if you ain’t ask fo her quarter first. Now put her down fo a spell an’ she’ll be alright.” he nodded to the girl and she stepped from behind Karen to us. I slipped the necklace around her and it fell just shy within her dress. I felt guilty for looking but it seemed natural there, seductive even; it dangled there, centered, beckoning a person to admire the entire portrait. I scooped Donna into in my arms and followed the girl through the kitchen and staircase beside it.

Donna was calm now, cool and breathing easy as she reached her arm around as she slept on our way.  “I know you only wanted to show me something nice… and that you still love me” she said and drifted off again to sleep deep for the rest of the night.

By the time I returned Michael was busy browsing through the racks of sweets though his arms weren’t still enough to pick anything up. The other, exhausted, sat sprawled out in McCullum’s chair. Laughing he stood by and didn’t seem to mind.

“Hey there, boy,” McCullum said. “Ain’t you had a day, huh?”

============

McCullum has put us up for the night and we were very thankful. We helped with chores that gave him trouble in his age while we stayed. He spoke little and always with a cheer in his voice. His demeanor was of one who’s finally realized that each day and many more to come has been a gift best not to spoil with a sour look. I enjoyed being around him.

McCullum owned a lot behind his store and we sat there with him after our chores. There he grew a round spot of grass he called his Eden, including a square garden that grew the cleanest vegetables I’ve ever seen. Next to that is a tree with large tropical leaves with plenty of shade for Donna beneath it in a lawn chair McCullum brought out for her. She ate when we did, said little, and was very sluggish since we’ve arrived but was otherwise normal if not a little tired.

However she has picked up this warm smile lately. It was new, we soon took it as a good sign. Donna rested watching us from across the lot, McCullum and I sat in our own pleasant silence watching the two girls between us have a tea party together. Anise was the young girl’s name. She’s grown attached to Karen while we were here.

The girl poured tea from an empty, battered tin kettle at a table maybe a foot shorter than Karen’s knee. She sipped then pretended to singe her tongue. The old man and I smiled. Michael snored on another lawnchair beside me covered in sap and straw, so content to chop wood all by himself for the man’s cooking stove. We ate sweet maple taffy of his labors without him.

McCullum treated us to homemade iced tea afterwards. I gulped down Michael’s share without an ounce of regret.

We watched Anise pour a second helping when the old man spoke to me. He had a way in speaking without looking away from something or towards you at all. I thought it was wise in a way. “So, boy-o. What do ya remember about the long-ago?”

I told him about the time in the cave, then moved on to what we’ve seen so far. I strained to keep the excitement out of my voice as Jason pointed out.

“It was a terrible day, yes it was… Thank you for keepin’ yesterday alive for us who can barely recall no more than my Neicie here could ‘bout two, three weeks ago. Thank ya.”

We sat without speaking for a little longer, then I asked what had happened to the buildings on the other side of the street, the burned street corners and ruined stores with shattered glass. He looked at me in the corner of his eyes, never turning away from the girls playing make believe. It was an accusing glare that rocked the kind, gentle image I had of him.

“What do you know about racism, son? Bigotry, hate, pure an’ simple.” he said. “Few hooligans in the area started sum’ mess with negro children, just sum’ more hooligans, and one of ‘em got kilt. Now them other boys been goin’ around makin’ all sorts of trouble. Sayin’ it’s in the name of the kilt boy. Bull. That’s what’s it’s all been about.”

I make few attempts to stay up to date with the news, but I was a far cry from being ignorant to what the negro people were experiencing these days. I have no such feelings or opinions about it (racism or hate, pure and simple) so I’ve never considered it an issue to think about. Watching this new fervor appear in his eyes, like a whipcrack not unlike the passion that surfaced from Jason, it was easy to see where this withered old man’s own fire spread from.

I told him I didn’t care much about the protesting, then he smiled and laughed a little. “You sure don’ give a damn about us little people, do ya?”

“No-- sorry. That’s not what I meant.”

“Naw, child, get a hold on. Not us negroes. I mean people. Other’s, son. You don’t care none too much about anythin’ outside yo little world… A bit like an old friend of mine. Just like tall, yellowbellied Jacy. You know that?”

He laughed again and I didn’t say anything else. It was throaty, deep, and without resentment

He looked out to his yard; he saw the large, neatly kept field and children playing inside it. We must all have been children to him, and also reflections of people he’s known in other lifetimes. “Didn’t mean anythin’ by it, boy-o. All I’m sayin’ is that it’s written all ovah yo face. How focused you are and how badly you want somethin’. I peggin’ you a guy who ain’t happy with the most of what he’s got, and that ain’t too bad. No, sir. Just about the other way around.”

Michael laying beside me on his chair snored suddenly but I hadn’t looked around.

“You a kinda boy who know exactly what he want but just don’t know how we wanna get it. You just like Jason before he got all responsible and such but pro’ly a little cooler round the collar.” He gestured to the circular field and garden beyond, his shoulder popped loudly and it seemed his arm went a little further afterwards. “You lookin’ fo a mountain to look down from. Then you think you’ll be happy. Other folks be fine with just a house on the horizon, that’s what you need… Just like what I got ovah hea. My own lil’ paradise is all I need.

“Man just needs a horizon, not a mountain. All the space his two feet can get him and everywhere and everyone he meets in between. They’d be his and he’d be for them cuz’ there ain’t never gonna be a high enough place to look down on on everybody else. Hear me?”

Neither of us spoke for some time. Donna got up from her spot in the shade and walked over to join the girls’ tea party, still wearing the same stocky dress from the night before. Slept in it actually and wouldn’t take the spare set of clothes we set out for her. McCullum wouldn’t argue and only laughed, laughing at secrets like private jokes were a trademark of his strange group. He gave her beaten relic instead to use whenever she went out, a faded Victorian parasol that might have been pink at another time. She swayed closer to them, slowly as she had not yet regained her strength. Karen pulled out a chair for her, Anaise was delighted to pour her a cup.

This mountain you’ve been climbin’,” McCullum said watching them. “thought you’ve been gettin’ close, haven’t ya? Saw it on yo face since gettin’ hea, you bein’ the only one all grinnin’ like you won the lottery but don’t wanna say so. I gotta tell ya, Jason’s had the same look too. One that’s got none of the patience but the determination to see the top. He’s had his own mountain for for the longest time, where he believed his girl lives now. Must be a gray, boring old place that don’t got much to it ‘cept some stones, but oh, a hell of a view it’s got. Huh, son? ...A view of everythin’ and all things at once. You must see it every time you close yo eyes, don’t ya?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yeah, ya do. Don’t play me for a fool.” Quick to dismiss with the insincerity of an annoyed parent. “You wanna see that place. Where those older than dirt live, the ones that live only on the smell of it and don’t need to reap to live like we do. Tell me, you wanna see the place where our Lady Red lives, don’t ya?”

I turned away. I didn’t want him to see if I’ve been turning red. Old man think’s he’s got me in a nutshell but who the hell did he think he was?

“Just say so… cuz’,” he continued. “I’ve heard from a little bird that if you ask nice enough… she’ll take ya with her if you can get her to shake these earthly bonds. You don’t have to worry about that right now tho. What’cha need to get the fire hot enough are from the sparks inside us. What gets a person really rolling an’ ready to go. But we can talk ‘bout that later…”

I noticed another grin and it made me furious. I wouldn’t speak to him. “Boy. Slow down and get enough of this world before goin’ on to the next, while you still soft in the achin’ parts. That’s all Grampa Cully’s got to say.”

He offered to refill my drink and I thanked him but before he stood, I said that I would get it. I noticed a white knuckles on my cup I had to pry from around it.

The kitchen on the other side of the wall is very spacious with cabinets and counters mostly made of wood. There are several machines for making candy and other sweets but the other rooms were more Spartan in appearance with little personalized things in the store and home.

Looking on from the kitchen and storefront I saw this was the home of a man and his bare essentials: there were no picture frames, no television, few books and sparse, plain furniture. The only means I can see of any enjoyment is a single radio, a tiny and pitiful device that may have played perhaps once or twice a week.

I walked on and found Aniese’s bedroom, a smaller room but proportionally fitting her size. The room was a sea of pink and toys. It was obvious how much McCullum cared for his niece. It felt wrong to stay in her room any longer but I spied an old photograph on the dresser beside an eye watering pink bed. The picture wasn’t a very cheerful one; it featured a lanky young colored woman in a tarnished dress much too old or much too large for her, despairingly holding a loosely swaddled infant. The baby teetered in the arms of a mother uncomfortable to have her picture taken. There was nothing written on the back.

Finally seeing enough, I left.

===========

With only a couple days left of our spring break it was McCullum pleasure to hold us over ‘til then.

He gave us a list of ingredients he hadn’t the time to get himself. Karen, Donna and I set out to get them while Michael stayed behind to chop more wood, called it a man’s job compared to shopping. There was plenty already but we indulged him with the chore regardless.

Grampa Cully, as he’s gotten us to call him, is adamant we walk to the store this afternoon, said his bones had the funny feeling that the weather would be perfect. Delighted for the suggestion, we took our time looking around town. We were far from any well known tourist spot but found plenty of other things to see. We even strolled into a thrift store heavily stocked with costumes. Jason would have had a field day.

Donna threw on a medieval dress and played a damsel in distress, moaning for a knight to come and save her. We laughed and took her picture against her best of pleas.

McCullum brought out a new polaroid one could hang around his neck, said he never had the occasion to take one lately and left it to us when we went out. Karen took our picture with slumbering Michael before we left. We enjoyed the time together, laughing and telling stories on the walk. I began to think later about what McCullum said, believed for a moment, just before we were met with trouble, that there was some truth there than the rantings of a regretful old man I tried to bury it as.

There very well was another space, a second reality where those beyond our compression lived, I had no doubt. I wished to see it, would give an arm and leg and more for the ferry ride there. He was right I realized carrying the groceries and watching the sun set on our way back --a brilliant crescent on the furthest peak on the horizon that made me think the sky was smiling at us. There is so much more to the life we can see, past petty arguments and material gain, that we rarely do appreciate. It put me down some to think this, nations of people with eyes focused on bright but temporary and fleeting things. It hurt to picture it, found it a waste somehow.

Tired from walking, a drowsy orange hue of sunset around us, we caught Michael at the corner of the road wondering what took us so long. We made him carry the groceries which were actually more than any of us expected. He trailed behind us as a somnolent girl leaned on my shoulder. Karen tinkered with the camera ahead. Glass shattered and Donna gasped, Karen held an arm up before walking further.

Three boys wore matching, gaudy anti-culture outfits: tie-dyed shirts and baggy trousers and everything else in uncured leather, all of which formerly displayed as costumes at the thrift store. Two smaller ones and another standing on the roof of the car of a crisp new Ford Falcon, his back towards us as he surveyed the other’s progress. He rocked the car underneath him whenever they weren’t working fast enough. We could only see the back of his messy crew cut but I felt I’ve seen him before. None of us made to stop them because of the thick pipe one held who was the most familiar standing beside the car.

“Larry… Is that you, man?” Michael said heedlessly, speaking with quivering amazement.

The one on the roof wore a moccasin leather coat with gaudy tassels hanging from his arms. They shook like a tidal wave when he flinched.

“Hwassat? Who’s there?” said the one hacking away below the steering wheel. They did not react right away, especially the scrawny one with the pipe. He stood and watched quaking in his boots.

Larry, standing above the car, stuck his nose in the air and played it cool coming down. He looked at me and grew a sneer of having smelled something awful leaping off of the trunk. The ones behind followed. “Hey, hey, hey! I remember you guys! Oh, what was it, what was it… Leroy, right? Yeah, Leroy!” he stepped towards me but Karen and Mike were already at my side. “Yeah, that’s it, Leroy, the Nancy boy.”

The goons behind him laughed and chanted along.

“Hey, man, what’s up? What’s with the bad vibes, brother? I thought we were--”

Michael clutched the tie-dyed shirt he likely stole. “What are you doin’ here, Larry? We split a long ways ago for a damn good set of reasons. What do you want?”

“Woah, hey? Man, the years have not been kind to your mellow. We used to be tight, two peas in a pod. Remember the good times we’ve had?”

“I don’t like you. Never did. Would always follow me around, flapping your jowls, and just had to have the last word. You’re a racist, too.”

“Then beat it, spick. We don’t have any business. And how are you, little lovely?” he said to Donna and brushed Michael off his chest as if he were a fly. Taken aback, he stumbled. Karen caught him from falling.

“Yeah, we don’t have any busin--” one repeated.

“Shut it!” he roared. There was a crackle in the air like something short circuiting near by. Larry nodded to the quiet one, said in a low breath, “You know where.” He let him scamper away.

“Hey, pretty pretty, you all dressed up for me? I’m touched.” he made for the shard clutched in her fist, “What’s that lovely thing you’re wearing. Mind if I…”

I told him to stay back and he looked sincerely offended. Donna saw something in him and grew pale.

“Mind dropping the macho man act, Nancy boy? And besides, that doesn’t belong to you.” He lunged at her. Michael ran to tackle him but the imp of a kid, the eager one caught him by the leg like a toddler keeping a parent from getting to work.

“What the--”

Their leader swung his arm across his chest and he and the imp were flung backwards. I heard the wind rush out of his chest. The smaller one landed with a crunch above a garbage bag of glass bottles, he began to turn gray.

“This one really hated you. Not the spick on the ground.” Larry spat, “I have lived through the memories of this one you call Larry, felt how he burned when the two of you found common ground, burned with envy, jealousy. What an eager tool I’ve found among you insects.”

The dark ambition gleaming in the pitch of an empty shell formerly called Larry gave him away, the electric specter at the farthest of the beach invaded his body.

“I can smell her near, the scent of where that concubine rubbed herself against you. And oh, such delightful things to lend a hand. A truly adorable thing. Warms my center through and through… These hands you use to cut each other which is the most exciting.

“Now, please. I am not a bad person, I do my part to help your kind however I am obliged to. And you all have fought so valiantly to keep her whereabouts a secret… but do well to listen when I tell you what matters not of thee from this moment on. Hand The Red over to me for we have many times to catch up on.”

He offered his hand to us. He might not have been able to take it on his own but could surely twist our arms until we did. The creature behind him giggled and goaded us on, tapping it’s grimy nails against it’s teeth.

This was a bad situation and we needed to leave. McCullum’s might provide some safe haven by whatever ward he might have up his sleeve but fleeing yet another bully always proved difficult.

Karen helped Michael up, his shoulder jutted out at an angle and the sound of teeth grinding chilled my spine. I eased back from the creature living inside a stale memory, he stepped closer, but Donna wouldn’t budge, mumbling strange words I couldn’t recognize. She then winked at us, odd yet such a trademark of another figure.

A quixotic glee spread across her face and it impressed me once again to how easily these people could touch our lives. Donna swooned over to Karen, barely missing Michael’s shoulder, and whispered something in her ear. I knew Karen gasped not from what she said but from how familiar the voice was.

“Stop it at once! Do not think for an instant I cannot see thee cozening yet again!” He roared to the gray imp that grew fangs and nails the size of railroad spikes, “Get them!”

“Now!” she said, a voice neither Donna or Scherzo at once. Karen aimed the polaroid and the flash went off. Blinding in the dark but nothing we couldn’t blink away; the two goons however howled in agony at the flash. When we could see again, Larry/Man Yellow was nowhere to be seen.

In the aftermath Donna really had fainted, she was out cold. I threw her over my shoulder and we made to leave when a strange, disjointed laughter crept from the imp on the ground clutching at it’s eyes.

It was dry, hacking wretch from the back of it’s throat. That thing knew something we didn’t and it infuriated me. I nearly forgot my friends and wanted to demand what was so funny when Karen urged me to come. I knew we were going to seek McCullum’s help, I knew there would be some way for him to protect us, but this may be my one and only chance.

I could beat what I wanted out of the cackling menace if I knew how or what to ask. It dawns on me again, beating foot and turning tail, how having loved ones also meant the responsibility to see them to safety, despite my own dark ambition.

============

A riot went on during and we had no idea. There was abandon in the smoke; bricks flew through windows, a man ran off with a purse that didn’t match the black he wore. Another man in a bandana fled an electronics store carrying an unpackaged television.

With plenty others beside us, we ran across the street where Karen remembered Sweet Sunshine would be. All I could see was smoke. Our eyes itched but the conflagration was easy to spot against a river of people. Nearing it we were shoved into a space around the pyre no one brave enough could cross, but we found the right place. We just hadn’t known it yet.

The store engulfed in flames, it’s two employees were nowhere to be seen.

I heard a cackling nearby through Karen sobbing. He was easy to find being either ashen grey or a head shorter than everyone else fleeing the scene. He waved to us, cackling, and we watched a man partly on fire stumble out the unhinged door.

I let Donna down next to Karen kneeling to watch the fire ravage the store then ran to Michael already trying to put him out with his coat and good arm. McCullum struggled to breath but managed to push us away once the flames were smothered.

“Naw! Naw! Lemme go! She’s still in there, can’t ya see?! Lemme go!” He fought us every step of the way. We dragged him back covered in soot but otherwise unharmed on the other side of the road. The old man pushed me back, I nudged Michael as I fell. He howled and fell over clutching his chest. I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling, gasping for breath and eyes nearly popping out of his head, but merely a bruise compared to the old man. He ran past us while we were both on the ground.

He hadn’t made it very far when Karen screamed. Donna rose while we were down and shambled on towards the store. I raved for her to stop, we all did, and I made to chase after her. She either made most of the way across without us knowing or moved with inhuman speed because by the time I had gotten on my feet, Donna vanished within the sweet smelling inferno.

Silence rang throughout the narrow driveway. Groups of rioters continued to ebb and flow past us. No one offered to help, no one had seen a thing but the backs of each other’s heads and behind them at nothing in particular, fleeing regardless. They thinned now as sirens echoed near. No one spoke, we sat in mutual silence and horror watching a storm of fire ravage the store. I fell to my knees some distance ahead of my cousin, unaware of anything then but the fire. Everything else canceled out beyond my line of sight.

It went on, destroying in a light show as it’s always had but unlike then, I did not feel warmth. The fire was not beautiful anymore.

In spite of this, I still watched, sitting quietly and waiting for it all come down. Moans in hoarse disparate voices rolled on from behind me with other small sniffles and sobs but I did not turn around. The flames became spirals and grew like vines out the window, like limbs moving towards us. No one moved, or had the list to get out of the way, when tendrils of bright light touched the spot in front of me, binding together into one thick column. The light was so intense I could bearly keep my eyes open. Hot air blew like a whirlwind about the street but after a moment, I couldn’t feel any of it: the column faded away leaving behind three people in a pool of random colors. The fire in the store suddenly died down.

Two of them were standing, Aniese rode piggyback above Donna. Lady Red stood by holding Donna’s hand. She let go and stretched casually above her head.

McCullum laughed in a broken voice as he eventually recognized who they were. He rode near and knelt to Scherzo, arthritic knees creaking all the way down. She simply waved back.

Donna was asleep on her feet but soon opened her bright green eyes that pierced through the lingering smoke. Aniese, clutched around her neck, said nothing until McCullum made his way there.

“I saw it… I saw where she lives, Cully… I’ve seen it.” She said in a dazed smile staring at the asphalt.

“That you did, that you did. Hush now.” And took her over his back and pressed her close. “I’ve got ya, child.”

Donna rubbed her eyes, smearing soot all over her face. Everything on her was scorched but there wasn’t a mark on her skin. Her long dress still smoldering and was plenty shorter now, as were her sleeves and hair which fell just above her shoulders now. Her bangs disappeared and as she smiled, revealing a pair of dimples I’ve never noticed until today.

“Leroy. It was wonderful. You should have seen her. I saw her… grow out of my chest.” She held up something thin and charred that looked like a single black hair, in the middle hung a black speck the size of a grain of rice.

“Oh, and she was so brave. I am so sorry thee has had to see that.” Scherzo said, “I hope you understand that it was the only way. I am eternally grateful for all thee and ye companions have done for me.” She came closer to me still kneeling in front of them and took me against her body. Her touch was the tenderness of a mother’s when she hugged me. “Our hearts were once connected, does thee not remember? Ye died a hundred times when we entered. I did not mean to frighten thee so, forgive me.” She put my face near hers and I saw how much love she had had for me. I had many questions but I couldn’t remember then how to speak. Thunder broke very close away but she did not seem afraid this time.

“I will be leaving now. I do not believe our paths will be ever so entwined hereafter. I will miss you so very much.” Then she stepped away.

“W-wait.” I managed to croak out. I felt McCullum’s hand on me.

“Hold on for a mo’, boy. You’ve done just fine and deserve the show.”

Lady Red moved several paces away. A crowd formed behind us. They watched what we did, having as much of a clue of what would happen next as we did. The five of us huddled closer when she winked at us.

It was roaring and delightful. Her hair went up in flames as she waved her arms to the music she brought with her wherever she went. Sparks went up and fell around her, they scattered and gathered into eleven little people in robes, some were men but most were women. McCullum gasped seeing their small faces. Among them racing each other around the woman who set fire to the air was Jason’s wife. McCullum went off recalling the names of his lost friends as they passed by in the parade.

The sound of strings and explosive trumpets tore through the air as the little people danced around their queen; a ritual performed once again after nearly a decade before an audience equally dumbstruck and captivated.

When it seemed they were approaching an end, slowing down and holding each other in a circle, streaks of light cascaded from above. Color filled between them and a golden staircase fell before the wreckage of the store’s front to a brilliant space above. A cool breeze came and lazy beams of light flooded the street. Scherzo lifted the hem of her dress, showing off her shapely legs and made a curtsy. Then the miniatures of old friends bowed to each other, shook hands, hugged, then disappeared. She turned around and made her way up the staircase.

McCullum stepped forward but hadn’t touched the stairs. He wouldn’t dare. She turned around, “Yes, then?” Her tone hinted impatience.

“Well… I know you’re eager to get a move on but there’s sumtin’ I’ve got to say, if ya don’t mind. I’ve been with ya for most of my life now, an’. . . ” he sounded incredibly hoarse. “I’m sorry we’ve stopped trying a while back. We’ve been getting on in age and nothin’s worked as it used to, ya see, … But I’ve always kept faith in ya’ that ye’d return. Don’t hardly know if anyone else still around believes you exist beside Jacy, but…”

Scherzo leaned in. “Yes. I am aware and I thank thee. I do not mind the others, thee knows, and I fare all men well. What does thee ask of me, for mind you to get on with it.”

“Y-yes, ma’am. I know and I will. See… I ain’t got much more time on me as you can tell… and ev’ythin’ I’ve put my two cents into besides my Neicie here (who I thankyee very much for savin’) had just gone up in smoke for ya’ to get here. Now all I’ve got to my name is the shirt on my back and my lil’ Aniese who ain’t even had no relation to me n’more than her mama I caught breakin’ into ma store before she’as born.

“Now I ask ya. Ain’t there any more room in that heart o’ yers or yo ride home for a lonely, old man such as me?”

“Hmm, just you then, is it? Lonely old you?” He didn’t respond. “Would thee want me to take the girl as well?”

“I ask ya’ to take her with ya. If anythin’.” he pleaded. “Don’t you go an make her homeless now. I’d never forgive ya for as long as I’d have breaf in me, in this world or the next.”

“I see… one should know that this means never returning again.” Speaking to the girl straddled to his side. “People like me don’t live in houses, you know. We live in the Sun, child.” She nodded.

Lady Red sighed cupping her elbows to her chest. “So be it then. Tis a long travel home and would do well with company.” She bent over to Aniese, the girl stretched her arms towards her and she carried her. McCullum wept taking Scherzo’s hand.

They turned to us and she spoke, “Thank you again. Cherish these moments and all those thee can recall, and I will do so forever.” She nodded to someone behind me. I turned around and Donna attacked from behind, catching me in a tight embrace. Laughing, they made their way up the staircase. The crowd around us gasped as McCullum looked down and waved. Scherzo peered over and spoke a final time. “Farewell, men of many languages and many faces. Disappointment of ye kind, even now amongst strife and civil unrest, is never any less of a myth amid my own… just as we have been of stories of thou own making. Fantasy, reverie, and impossibility, of which in either realm is sparse an obscure tale... Farewell, then.”

And they walked further and higher up, disappearing within white point in the dark, starless night. Thunderstorms spilling in from the west, crackling doom in rage and regret, would never catch up to them again.

============

Donna stood above a grated drain with a whirlpool around her.

A storm picked up nearly an hour after Scherzo left us and as expected, we’ve experienced a sort of pleasant melancholy then; only Donna seemed unphased by her leaving. Euphoria went the closest to describe this change, standing feeling drunk in the rain rubbing water across her cheeks and chest. I’m in my own dissatisfied heap on the dry sidewalk. Karen took Michael to a local clinic to reset his arm after a long bout of asking around and were sleeping it off in the car. I didn’t know what time was.

Donna stood in the middle of it all, oblivious and without a care in the world as everyone in town also turned in for the night. Water swirled around her feet and the air was thick of the smell of green leaves that came hand in hand with every strong rain.

Her dress, as little left of it remained, clung to her body and soaked her to the bone. Guilt crossed my mind once watching her from afar but hadn’t stuck for long, having sunk into despair as the day’s impact finally hit me. I’ve missed my opportunity and… wondered what mystery in life was left here after.

I saw her sneeze, recover, then stomp in every puddle. An image of bliss and infectious by just watching her. I smiled with envy still on my lips. Having had her fill, she returned skipping almost in the downpour.

She leans over, sopping wet and dripping on me. “What’s on your mind, Lee?” she said like such a child.

“Donna. How are you?”

“Whatever do you mean?” She plops down sending up a fine gust of soot in the air. Snickering, she apologizes.

“I mean, how are you?” I sputtered out. “How do you feel?”

“Oh, I’m okay. I do feel a little different than yesterday though. Lighter, if that’s what you mean.” She wrapped a damp arm around me, thanking me for inviting her to the beach what seemed a forever ago. I said it was no problem and she would have done the same.

Neither of us had a watch. The clock in the car was a block away neither of us felt like getting to. I yawned then she did to after me. We laughed.

We watched the rain fall a little longer. She asked if I smelled anything, I said I noticed mint in the air, peppermint, and that it’s either what’s left of the store or the rain. More like blueberries, she said.

“Leroy?” Donna asked.

“Yes?”

“How are you?” and I laughed.

“I’m okay too.”

“Are you sure?” she said. It’s been a long day, I thought.

“No, I’m not. I feel disappointed.” I said perhaps a minute later, “I’m not sure what we’re doing here anymore. I mean look at this place.” I gestured to the store in shambles and broken cinders around us. “...I don’t recognize it anymore. What are we still doing here? And… what did we really accomplish? Was it worth all this in the end? Sure, we finally got… that woman home and all but what do we have to show for it? What was the point in these couple of days?”

She didn’t say anything for a while. We watched the water draining away, listened to it rush and babble. She pulled my arm closer. “I don’t know what to say to that. But didn’t you have fun? I did.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” She seemed hurt. “Anyway, how was it like over there? When Scherzo took you up, or wherever. Aniese said she saw where she was from. Did you see it too?”

A glaze hovered over her eyes and she smiled, “Yes. I remember it. Felt like I was sleepwalking but led around by my hand… across I think a long hallway. Oh, and the windows! The view, you should have seen it!”

She must have seen something in my eyes because she tried to not sound as excited about it. “There were openings outside that were sort of like windows but different somehow. Like paintings of people whose eyes follow you around. There was this long beach that looked like the water was made of silver, there was this wonderful meadow across that and… which was the most amazing, was that it was very bright outside but whenever I looked up through a window I saw a sky just loaded with stars. It was lovely, day and night at the same time, you really should have… sorry.”

I said it was fine. “It does sound like a beautiful place.”

“Yeah…” And she pulled closer. “I wonder if McCullum is there right now…”

“That b*****d.”

“W-what?”

“Bet he knew I was about to ask for the same thing. ‘Saw it on my face’, he said… He cheated me. I don’t give a damn that his shop burned down.”

Donna buried her face in my arm. “Please don’t say that. He’s a good person…” she muffled in my arm, “and besides, what would we do later on? That wouldn’t be fair…”

“What do you mean?”

“Would you have just left us all behind? How could you?”

“Well… It’s not as if I would have gone alone.”

“We would have held you back anyway, wouldn’t we?” she snapped.

“No, it’s not like that at all. I just wanted… I was curious.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Look, all I mean is that he shouldn’t have jumped at it the first chance he had.”

“He had every right.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“McCullum --and Aniese-- deserved to go. You don’t know how much of a hard time they’ve had in this town. People here were cruel to them, and this wasn’t the first time someone set fire to his store he told me. McCullum said that Aniese and his store were the only things that kept alive… I don’t know what you may think about it but I’ve never thought that kind of greed was hardly any healthy.

“He was an old man. He’s seen a lot and… he might have had enough of this place, had seen too much. That’s what I’d like to believe at least.”

It took me aback to hear her so forceful, and how involved and close it felt to hear it.

“There’s… just so much out there, so many things to feel or see or be apart of. And yet so far away. Wouldn’t it have been nice to hitch a ride there?”

She took a moment to make up her mind, “Okay. But, how about the things… you would miss on your way there? It’s not as if you could pay attention to every single thing just looking out the window.”

“...What?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” she sighed. “Well, see, we’ve only been alive for so long, right? There are always going to be things that will blow you away or whatever to lose yourself in. Plenty of days to live to the fullest, we’re young. So… why wouldn’t it make sense for an old man to take that next step when the moment was right? ‘Cause, he’s been around the block a few times, ya see? ”

And I laughed a little.

“And Jason too, now that I think about it. ...shouldn’t he have gone too?”

“Suppose.”

“They’ve both been around. And around and around and around.” We sat like this a little longer. It’s gotten warmer, the clouds parted some as the rain let up with it. The sky was pale blue we saw as they sailed on; we broke into dawn talking the night away. “I wouldn’t have wanted to go even if I lived to be a hundred. Would regret not doing as much here while I had the chance, no matter how lovely their stars were.”

Found a fat chunk of charred whatever near by. Up close I saw it part of the wood carving of the sun, a permanent ‘yum’ etched onto it. A sun with snowflakes around it may have stood for something, I never once bothered to ask what it meant.

I threw it at the storm drain and it must have caught in some undertow or something because it was ripped aside when we saw the splash of where chunk of wood went in. It got no closer to the middle each time around before it disappeared.

“I think I could wait a while, too.” She looked up from my shoulder. Our eyes met and we kissed as the last of the rain fell.

September 22nd, 2015

4:07 AM

Author's Note

I'm afraid my characters are too flat, especially the antagonist eventually in the story, and my sentence structure may be too redundant. Any advice is welcome, Thanks

Reviews

[MightyMouse]

I see you have no reviews on this story. I, personally loved it. It was like reading a short story from the literature books in English class. We would have spent a week reading this and taking quizzes and whatnot. There were few mistakes, like an extra word, or punctuation error, but you could completely forget about those. It was a lovely story, kept my attention. I look forward to reading more of your work in the future.