Stacy--Part Fifty-Four

Splog # 197

Fifty-Four

 Stacy looked below her feet to see Johnny getting smaller and smaller. Before long, she began moving away from the tree in more of a horizontal than a vertical direction. A moment before Johnny disappeared in the distance, Stacy saw Lane join him at the rail of the tree platform. Then she was watching them receding in the distance. The rainbow's end seemed to be anchored to the tree and now she was drifting along under its wide arch. When she looked down, a strong sense of fear clutched her stomach. The ground appeared awfully far below her and the string that was holding her up was so thin and it seemed as if her weight could break it at any moment. She looked above her where the string faded into the rainbow. It wasn't until then that she noticed that the string was gently bobbing up and down as it moved along the curve of the rainbow. The string was behaving as though Stacy herself was no heavier than a balloon. Hovering in mid-air, Stacy tried to force herself upward or downward. If she was a balloon on a string, she wanted to experience the appropriate sensations. But she couldn't move up or down. So she tried swinging sideways. That was easy to set in motion but made her feel dizzy, so she shut her eyes until she felt herself become stationary again, more or less. When she reopened her eyes, she found that the country she was gliding over held little interest for a viewer. A vast, almost colorless plain, with an occasional tree and here and there a cell like the one Lane had pointed out to her. The whole experience reminded Stacy of something but she couldn't put her finger on it. With nothing much to look at, her mind started wandering. What would Lane and Johnny do now? She supposed they could follow the rainbow, but she seemed to be moving faster than they could walk and the rainbow would probably fade away sooner or later. And what about herself? What was happening>? Where was she being taken? The string had floated around Lane, and around Johnny too, when he was asleep. Had it chosen her from the three? Or was she here now only because she had made a successful grab at it? Was this a good thing or a bad thing? And was it any stranger than any of the other things that had happened since she'd followed a white butterfly over a stone wall? Was Splog in the tree with Lane and Johnny? Would he know what to do so they could get her back? Why were they called the Doolins? And where did the name of the Fe-San come from? All questions that needed an answer from someone else. Nothing she could figure out on her own. And her brain was becoming tired from pondering these things. She began to feel a little discouraged. Everything was so strange and confusing.