The Timeless Tale of Peter Able

by Natalie Grigson

  So I finished my dinner and left the restaurant, teetering slightly as I went along. At this point, though, it looked like many of the innocently floating cupids had not so innocently shot their arrows at passersby, and the slightly blurry street was lined with couples holding hands, gazing at each other in ways that would have been creepy if we weren’t in Romance, kissing on benches, and farther down the street under the shadows from Sci Fi’s towers, well, doing a lot more than playing spaceship.

  “Jenny,” I sighed with a sudden pang of guilt. I’d been lolling about on a Friday night, drinking Fantasy Fizzes, while Randy and The were out there working hard and Jenny was who knew where? Still a little loopy, I made my way home, clumsily dodging arrows as I went.

  As soon as I walked in the door, I made some tea with a hefty pinch of Nonfiction. This, plus the two (okay, three) Fantasy Fizzes settled me into an oddly calm state—relaxed enough to feel confident, not so relaxed that I’d fall asleep. Now I’m not advocating mixing Fantasy and Nonfiction (especially not when driving), but really, I felt pretty good.

  “All right, magic. Let’s do this,” I said like an idiot, but I didn’t care. I could bring these backstories to me. I’d been the most powerful wizard in Fiction once. I could do anything! Without pausing to think about the repercussions of messing up the spell, I walked from the kitchen, past the typewriter, bedside table, mattress, and pile of household items (the hobbit had gone home), into the living room and stood in its center. Yes, right on top of the coffee table; I was feeling a little dramatic.

  “COME TO ME!” I shouted, pointing my wand up at the heavens! The wand, of course, struck the ceiling from where I was standing and came clattering down onto my face, sparks flying and little pops! bouncing around the room. I cowered on top of the table until the noises stopped and opened my eyes to find my living room filled with potted petunias.

  “Okay, then.”

  I hopped off the coffee table and sat down in the once-again normal-sized leather armchair. I just needed to relax; I was making too big a production out of this.

  And so I closed my eyes, grateful for the mix of Fantasy and Nonfiction pulsing happily through my veins, took a few deep breaths, and then, well, just kind of did it.

  I imagined the backstories very clearly in my mind’s eye—Cinderella’s, Daphne’s, Alice’s, and Jenny’s—not with the exact words but just the feel of them, from what I knew about each character. I imagined what I would feel like, right then, if they were there in my living room. I’d be happy; I’d be overcome with it! And as I focused on the feeling, not holding my wand up or anything, something very strange happened. I began to feel overcome with happiness, as though the backstories were there, and then without a doubt in my mind, I knew they were on their way. Ask, believe, and receive. Hey, I’ve read The Secret too, you know.

  I hadn’t, however, bargained on the fact that? would also be on his way, as he happened, at that very moment, to be holding on to the backstories.

  W wa nd a l l !!! o G L ASS!!! c Win dow

  So fa Dust ff ee de bris !!!!!!!!!

  Smoke! ! Type wr iter!! Hidden Security C a m e r a le

  F Wo o d! ta Flo ori b

  mattress wall

  An explosion, a burst of blinding light, and then for a moment all was gone. I opened my eyes; I didn’t know up from down, I didn’t know ground from ceiling. All I could tell was that I was suddenly in a great deal of pain and seemed to be flying backward, in what felt like very slow motion, through the broken words and letters that were once my living room. Luckily, the mattress seemed to be intact, for the next thing I knew, I’d bounced off it, leaning up against the opposite wall, and fell to my knees on the wood floor.

  My eyes watering, I looked up. Not for the first time, the windowed living room wall had been blasted apart, along with most of the things in the middle of the room. There, where the coffee table had been reduced to letters, was a swirling mass of what looked like angry bees, but these little things were so much smaller than bees, smaller than dust even. An amorphous tornado in the middle of my living room—and in its middle, a handful of papers.

  I felt around suddenly for my wand—then I saw it, broken in half, amid the wreckage of the wall. I’d never done magic before without my wand at least nearby; I didn’t know if it was possible to do it in two pieces.

  “Peter Able,” the thing said softly, almost soothingly. Even when it stopped talking, a low hum seemed to reverberate throughout the room, as though it was radiating some sort of low electric current. “Why did you bring me here, Peter Able? You’ve already erased me from your backstory. ISN’T THAT ENOUGH?” In a blink, the roving mass of little particles was no longer, and in its place stood a young girl holding a pile of papers in her hand. She had black hair, a long, straight nose, and, where her eyes should have been, two gaping holes. Her whole body had the appearance of crawling with ants, but as she moved closer and closer, I realized it was just the little particles, apparently struggling to stay solid.

  She was feet from me now. I couldn’t seem to move. I felt outside of myself, watching this very fascinating thing happening to this poor character, covered, I now noticed, in his own blood.

  “A boy wizard without his wand,” the girl said, even quieter and yet more terrifying than before. She didn’t have a mouth; when she spoke, the lower half of her face seemed to blur slightly; the particles of her body slowed and faded.

  Talking seemed to be draining her of her energy.

  “Who are you?” I asked, grabbing on to the first salient thought I’d had in minutes. Just keep her talking. Still on my knees, I edged my way a bit to the left, on the pretense of dodging her outstretched hand—it was growing more and more indistinct, the little swarming dots that made her up, growing farther apart, less solid. If I could just get to my wand, hold the two pieces together, my magic would be restored. I knew it.

  She lunged forward, one hand still holding on to the backstories, the other, reaching for my throat. I dived out of the way but not quick enough. Her indistinct hand had grazed my right shoulder; it felt like she’d held a flame to it, but only for a moment, before it went completely numb. I glanced down at it—it was swarming with particles, just as the little girl had been. That close, I could see that they were actually tiny letters, numbers, and symbols. Minuscule bits of information.

  The girl was gone. For a moment, it seemed the creature had vanished, but then I saw them—the little bits were swarming, funnel-like where she’d been, at first spread out, then condensing, condensing, condensing . . .

  And then before me there was a tall man—he had a bow and arrow strapped across his back, where I could also see a few pieces of paper sticking out. He sported a thick beard; again, he had no mouth, and for eyes, blank stretches of skin. He too seemed less than solid, and even as he charged toward me, arms outstretched, I could see him fading away, the little bits losing their solidity. He vanished, and in that space, I dived toward my wand. It was lying in two pieces on the edge of the room among the debris of the broken wall, just where the floor dropped off to the open air outside.

  So of course, my outstretched fingertips hit one half of my wand and sent it flying outside. Vaguely, I heard someone say something below, but that didn’t matter. My leg was on fire—right down into the very bone marrow. I was melting, surely. I whipped around, howling in pain, and then again—numbness. My leg was losing its solidity. Little moving bits of information remained.

  “No wand, no wand. What to do now, Peter?” the thing said, louder this time. Its voice surrounded me—then it materialized, more solid than I’d seen it yet, as a girl who looked . . . just like Jenny.

  “Jenny?!”

  It laughed—a cold, high laugh—but Jenny’s mouth didn’t move. It moved closer, I was edging back toward the gaping hole of my living room, I could feel the breeze on my neck. I realized then how weak I felt, the numbness seemed to be creeping through me, slowing my thoughts; all the while, Jenny was getting more
solid.

  “Jenny?! You think I’m Jenny?!” Again, the thing spoke, but not from a mouth—Jenny’s face just kept smiling, baring its teeth. “I’M NOT JENNY. JENNY IS GONE.”

  When it laughed, I felt it course through me like a wave of current.

  “I was Jenny’s big sister in her backstory. Just like I was Cinderella’s uncle.” Again, the thing morphed into the man with the bow and arrow—more solid this time. “I was Daphne’s cousin.” Again, the girl with black hair, the holes of her eyes more detailed, like tunnels. “And the creature that didn’t quite make it into Alice’s Wonderland.” The girl vanished, and I found myself staring up at a gray monster, roughly human in shape, but its face was taken up with one giant mouth, rows and rows of fangs protruding crookedly from it—behind them, not a throat, but the infinite heavens. Stars and planets twinkled behind those teeth. I was overcome with the desire to get closer; I knew that just behind those teeth was a great secret, perhaps the biggest secret and—

  Luckily, the creature vanished, and in its place, again, was Jenny’s look-alike sister. My thoughts were mush. My metaphors, crap. Sentences. Incomplete.

  But then the girl stopped advancing on me and held out the backstories. “Peter Able, I’m tired of you and your friends messing about with things you don’t understand.”

  Its voice was ringing through me, rattling around in my skull like something physical. “Every time you erase me, Peter, it hurts. It hurts my feelings, Peter. It makes me feel like I don’t matter. And you know what? I DON’T LIKE IT WHEN PEOPLE DON’T ACKNOWLEDGE ME.

  “So, here’s what I think I’ll do. I think I’ll just go ahead and get rid of this one.” She held out Jenny’s backstory, still smiling, teeth bared. “I never did like being this sister character anyway. This way you’ll remember what happens when you try to mess about with things that you don’t understand. Yes, I think so . . .” In an instant, the girl who looked like Jenny was gone, replaced with Black Hair–No Eyes, and she was tearing Jenny’s backstory, straight down the middle.

  “COME TO ME!” I screamed, panicked. I hadn’t had time to so much as imagine the page land gracefully in my hand; I just poured all of the feeling—the panic, the pain, the confusion, the hate, and the love—out of myself and into keeping Jenny safe. I looked down into my right hand—there was a stack of papers. Not just Jenny’s backstory, but Cinderella’s, Daphne’s, and Alice’s as well.

  Wasting no time, the girl lunged at me, growling, low and feral. I dived forward underneath her, and she skidded to a stop just before plummeting from the hole in the wall.

  Where’s an eraser? Where’s an eraser? I need an eraser! I ran around the room, panic-stricken, looking at all of the surfaces covered in dust and debris. There was no way I could find an eraser in this mess.

  Then, very clearly, Mattie’s trilling voice popped into my head. Just imagine that you already have it! I felt a leap of excitement. I said the word, knew it was in my hand, and when I looked down, saw that I was holding an eraser.

  “PETER.” The girl was before me again, she stretched out her arm to grab my ankle; I jumped out of the way, my eyes frantically searching the topmost backstory for the mention of?.

  I ran into my bedroom, slammed the door behind me and leaned up against it. A moment later I felt the full weight of something very large and solid bang into it, rattling my teeth.

  Cinderella doesn’t have a huge family . . .

  Doesn’t like cabbage soup . . .

  There it was:

  On Cinderella’s eighth birthday, an uncle on her . . . mother’s side? (Name . . . ? Unimportant). Unnamed uncle shows up and gives her a gift . . .

  That was it. Just one mention. Without thinking, I erased it. The pounding on the other side of the door stopped.

  I tossed the page aside—Alice’s backstory. As soon as I read the first few words, something massive smashed into the door, and I could hear the wood splinter. I dived underneath my bed, holding on to the backstories tightly.

  Alice loves books from a young age . . .

  She is quiet and shy at school . . .

  It went on and on, this backstory, and all the while, the pounding on the other side of the door grew louder. Then, with a deafening crash, the door exploded inward.

  And there it was—

  Alice has a nightmare one night about a monster called? (will fill in name later). Evil, most vile monster,? lures people into its mouth showing them great secrets and mysteries . . . (? possibly to come up later in story—depending on target audience)

  I didn’t even look up. I knew the creature was in my room; I could feel its heavy footsteps on the wooden floor. I erased—it was lifting up the bed. I erased the next mark. It was growing weaker, the bed frame trembling. I erased the third, and the bed fell with a thud.

  Jenny’s was next. It was just one page, and the top half was torn right down the middle. I wanted so badly to pause, to fix it, but just then, a head popped into my line of sight. Jenny’s snarling sister was crawling under the bed, lashing out at me violently with her arms, desperate to reach the last remaining backstories. I scooted back; she touched my wrist, and I screamed.

  “SHOVE OFF!” I yelled—not really intending to do magic, but I did. The girl was thrown across the room but a moment later was back, coming around to the other side of the bed where I was. I dodged her clumsily, my body growing more and more ungainly as more of me turned to bits and went numb.

  “Come out, come out, Peter.”

  “Go awa—”

  But too late. She clawed her way under the bed and reached out a hand to my mouth. I thought I’d die from the pain, and then, again, it went away, leaving the bottom half of my face completely numb. My mouth—and magic—useless. I scrambled from beneath the bed, dragging my limp, indistinct leg behind me. For a moment, the more and more solid figure was trapped—it was just enough time. The passage wasn’t hard to find; it was just one page:

  Jenny’s sister? never gets along w/the family, b/c she’s the only one who can’t do magic. Name Maggie, Elizabeth Name -? – not important. She runs away and never comes back but leaves Jenny badly affected, hard for her to get close to people . . .

  Standing on my one good leg, I pushed the backstory up against the wall with my slightly unwieldy hand, and with the other I erased the?s. I dropped the piece of paper to the floor.

  I had just one backstory left, one page front and back. I was scanning the front of the sheet, in the back of my mind wondering where the creature had gone—why wasn’t she moving underneath the bed? What was going on?

  It was too quiet, but I didn’t have time to worry about that. There was the passage—

  Daphne’s cousin,?—black hair, long straight nose like her mom—comes to visit every Christmas. Daphne never likes?, always makes fun of?,

  ? and Daphne get into lots of fights,? prompts Daphne to later find her magical powers?

  And on and on it went like this. I started, one by one, erasing the question marks—but then there was a low humming noise, and I could feel the room vibrating; no, it wasn’t the room, it was everything. I glanced up and found myself surrounded by tiny floating bits—minuscule letters, numbers, and symbols. They drifted about formlessly, almost languidly, and for a moment, I couldn’t help but marvel at their beauty. Little, tiny bits of possibilities not yet formed into anything solid—

  Of course almost as soon as I thought it, they did, in fact, start to form into something more solid. It was the girl with no eyes—only looser, even more indistinct. And she was moving at me through the air like a ghost, her body a mass of floating bits outstretched, ready to envelop me—

  Without pausing to think, I took both sides of the backstory and ripped it in half. I did it again with those halves, and again and again, and each time I did, the creature’s little swarming bits became more and more dispersed. I limped to the bathroom with the handful of torn paper, I turned on the water in the sink, and I watched the hot water melt away the wor
ds. I wanted to light it on fire. I wanted to bathe it in acid. I was mad with the need to disintegrate the creature into less than nothing.

  I knew the creature was gone when I felt the pain in my leg come back, then in my wrist, then in my face. It was as though someone were holding a torch to my skin, slowly melting me away like a wax doll. Surely the pain would kill me. Somewhere from very far off, I could hear voices, voices shouting my name.

  Perhaps it was killing me, I thought idly. Perhaps this was dying.

  But no. The pain was getting worse, and the pleasant voices were replaced with a terrible screaming. And then, when I thought I couldn’t bear it any longer, I heard the familiar sound of a frying pan swinging through the air, there was a dull ache in my head, and then, mercifully, all was black.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “. . . been out for a few hours. I think he’ll be fine.”

  Dull throbbing. Head. Fire. Awful. Nauseous. Sleep.

  “You have to make sure to mix the sugar in before you add the chocolate sauce. That’s the secret.”

  Things slightly more clear. Definitely Randy’s voice—but why was he speaking through a radio speaker? Maybe sleep . . .

  “A day now. Went through quite an ordeal, quite an ordeal.”

  Images of Jenny with no eyes, chasing me, if only I’d kiss her she’d show me the entire universe. If only I’d kiss her, but she faded away . . .

  “Why, yes, thank you, it was on sale.”

  I blinked my eyes open for a moment—the whole room was filled with people, sunlight streaming through the open windows. Overwhelming. Don’t want to think about . . . Sleep.