The Whisper

by Aaron Starmer

  The Mandrake is a cipher with hummingbird bones. It can take a few different forms. The best way to identify it is to spot the horseshoe-shaped blue mark behind its ear. Its weakness is blood, but no one has ever managed to get blood on it. Do not trust the Mandrake. Do not attempt to capture the Mandrake unless you are experienced and prepared.

  Alistair pressed the red ring again and the tab receded. “These tubes. Hadrian said one led to the Ambit of Ciphers. Was that the only way there?”

  Chip shook his head. “If Hadrian was telling the truth—which, who are we kidding, is a gamble—then it may have been the quickest way. But if that means having to go toe-to-toe with the Mandrake, then the better bet has always been to take the long route.”

  “How long is that?”

  Chip picked up the atlas and thumbed the pages like he was cycling through a flip book. “Depends,” he said. “If you know what you’re doing, it might take two years.”

  “What?”

  Chip closed the atlas. “Not that long, in the grand scheme.”

  The book was thicker than the heftiest dictionary Alistair had ever seen. There were probably thousands of pages in it, thousands of worlds. “So what should I do?”

  “Sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” Chip said. “As I see it, you’ve got two options. You can try to do what you’ve already been doing. You can journey to the Ambit of Ciphers and you can battle through the monsters until you get to the Whisper. Then you can battle him, and if you beat him, maybe you’ll find out what happened to your friend.”

  “Sounds … difficult.”

  “Sure does,” Chip said. “But it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Actually, I think you have a better shot than anyone. Even better than Polly, who, if I had to guess, has failed in her mission.”

  “What’s my other option?”

  “Find your friend’s world, add it to our maps, study it. If there’s a cipher there, bring that baby to us.”

  “You don’t sound very excited by that option,” Alistair said.

  “It isn’t sexy, but it has potential,” Chip said. “Dot’s got a theory, actually. She doesn’t think we have to look far for the missing daydreamers. She thinks they’re still embedded in their worlds.”

  “Embedded?”

  “All the stuff that daydreamers create—you know, landscapes, figments, machines, all of that—it all comes from their minds, right? Those things were once a part of them, like bits of dry skin that flake off.”

  “Fiona told me something similar once.”

  “Well, Dot thinks if you can extract the, let’s say, Fiona-ness from Fiona’s world, then you can bring Fiona back.”

  “Sounds even more difficult.”

  “Maybe not,” Chip said. “Dot’s actually made some progress. You see, there are still a bunch of figments on this space station, and she’s been running experiments on them. She’s learned a lot about the daydreamer who created this place. Even might have conjured … well, life.”

  Chip reached beneath the front of his shirt and pulled out the thin chain of a silver necklace. A cylindrical and clear pendant hung from the chain. In the middle of the pendant, there was a tiny glowing orb, no bigger than a pea.

  “What’s that?” Alistair asked.

  “That’s life,” Chip said. “Beginnings of it, at least. Dot mixed bits of figments and baked ’em up in a lab with centrifuges and all that. I’m serving as an incubator for the time being, on account of my … well … Being chubby makes me a good insulator.”

  As Chip slipped the pendant back beneath his shirt, Alistair asked, “What type of life is it?”

  “Daydreamer,” Chip said, giving his chest a gentle pat. “The kid who created this place, actually. We’re trying a good ol’-fashioned resurrection.”

  “And it’s worked?”

  Chip held up crossed fingers. “Three hundredth time’s the charm? Seriously, though, we haven’t gotten past this stage yet, but getting to this stage is a big honkin’ deal.”

  Ever since Fiona had told him about it, Alistair couldn’t shake the image: a pen entering an ear, a pen filling up with sparkling liquid. “What about the soul?” Alistair asked. “Doesn’t the Whisper steal their souls? With his pen?”

  “What’s a soul?”

  “Well, a soul is … a person’s essence … a person’s story … a…”

  “It’s not a trick question,” Chip said. “Because I really wonder. I’ve asked Dot basically the same thing. Even if we do get this little orb to grow arms and legs and all that, will it be anything more than a big old hunk of flesh? Will it be an actual human being with feelings and all that? Dot thinks it will be.”

  There was another, more recent image that Alistair couldn’t shake: Dot typing on her typewriter, her suspicious gaze never retreating from Alistair’s face. “She doesn’t like me, does she?”

  “Dot doesn’t like anyone,” Chip said. “Don’t take it personally. She’s stubborn. Hard to convince. That’s actually why I wanted to catch you before she wakes up. We discussed things after you went to bed. She thinks you’re hiding something from us.”

  “I’m—”

  “And I agree with her,” Chip said. “But only on that front. Here’s the difference between her and me. She wants to keep you here longer. To study you. Find out what you know. I want to send you out, because I sense something in you. I think you’ve got the skills to do what has to be done.”

  “What … has to be done?” Alistair asked.

  “Even if we could resurrect your friend, we may never be able to keep up with all the new daydreamers we’re losing. This will keep going on and on and on. Isn’t it obvious what has to be done?”

  It was. The Whisper had to be defeated. But what did that mean for Charlie? “I’m not sure you realize where I’m from,” Alistair said.

  Chip shrugged. “I don’t give a rat’s ass about that. You know how long we’ve been experimenting and collecting data?”

  “A few … years?”

  Chip shook his head. “If only. Can you imagine how sick of this I am?”

  “Very?”

  “Very very. You’re an anomaly, Alistair, one in a billion. You survived the Mandrake. You found us in a single day. That means something. I’m not going to let you become another of Dot’s guinea pigs.” Chip pushed the book of maps toward Alistair. “You should take this.”

  “Won’t you need it?” Alistair asked.

  Chip waved him off. “We have tons of them. The daydreamer who created this place also made the ink that powers the books and a printing press gadget that reproduces them. When we write in one book, the same thing magically appears in hundreds of other books. So don’t worry. We’re fully stocked.”

  Alistair picked the book up. It was surprisingly light, given its size. “So I’m supposed to go to the Ambit of Ciphers?”

  “You’re supposed to do whatever it is you’ve been doing,” Chip said. “Trust your instincts. I think fate is on your side.”

  A hilarious notion. For Alistair, the opposite was clearly true. On the walls of the lounge, the four black-and-white movies continued to play. Cowboys and Indians. A heroic dog. Gangsters. Teenagers in love.

  1988

  A folded piece of loose-leaf had eight names written on it. There was a ritual to this, but Alistair didn’t really get it. It was girl stuff.

  “Pick a number,” Keri said, her fingertips poised inside an origami fortune-teller, which she held to Alistair’s nose like a flower.

  “Fine. Six,” Alistair grumbled.

  “And a color.”

  “Burnt umber.”

  “Come on, a real color.”

  “That is a real color. There’s a crayon that color.”

  “I mean a standard color.”

  “Okay, whatever. Green.”

  Keri pursed her lips and tilted her head. “You sure?” she said.

  “Just do the stupid thing,” Alistair said, turning to the backseat window.

  Beh
ind the faint reflection of Keri opening and closing the fortune-teller like the double-jointed jaw of a Venus flytrap, nature swept by in a damp and budding blur. On the stereo, a song heavy on banjos set the mood. They were heading to a campground, a yearly tradition for Memorial Day weekend.

  “Crack a window back there, would you?” Alistair’s dad said. “We’re getting a lot of condensation on the glass.” One hand on the wheel and one hand buried in a sleeve, he reached forward to wipe the windshield as Alistair’s mom hit the defrost button on the dashboard.

  Preferring the filminess, Alistair ignored the request, so Keri latched on to her window crank with the crook of her elbow and rolled it down without taking her fingers out of the fortune-teller. Cool air, oaky and sharp, filled the car.

  Keri used the pointy edges of the fortune-teller to nip at Alistair’s ear.

  “Quit it!” he snapped, and turned with a fist up.

  Keri cocked her chin toward their parents in the front seat. Idle threats were nothing new to her. “Pick an animal,” she said, pushing the fortune-teller in Alistair’s face.

  On folded flaps of paper were drawings of a cat, a dog, a fish, and a unicorn. Alistair knew the unicorn was a trick, a silly enticement that he was supposed to choose. The cat reminded him a bit too much of Charlie. And the dog? Dogs were great, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know which name would be associated with a dog.

  He tapped the picture of the fish.

  “Oooo, an underwater breather,” Keri said as she pulled one hand out and reached to peel back the flap and reveal the name underneath. “And the girl you shall marry is … drum roll please…”

  “Not doing it,” Alistair said, his hands firmly planted on his thighs.

  “Fine,” Keri said, tapping a few fingertips on the fabric of the seat.

  “Just say it!” Alistair barked.

  A gust of wind did the talking instead, howling through the car as it snatched the fortune-teller and sucked it out of Keri’s open window.

  “Pixie farts!” Keri hollered as she went after it, fighting against her seat belt and thrusting a hand out into the spring air.

  “Hey now!” Alistair’s mom yelped, spinning around to halt the commotion. In the process, her elbow struck a coffee cup resting on the center console, sending it into Alistair’s dad’s lap. Luckily, it was mostly empty and the scant liquid left inside was cool. It startled him nevertheless.

  “Sh—sugar!” he cried, successfully dodging the swear, but jostling the wheel. The car swerved into the other lane.

  Alistair saw it before anyone else, or at least he reacted to it first. In the opposite lane, something was barreling down the road, its momentum building. Not another car, though.

  “Bear!” Alistair screamed.

  Sure enough, a black bear—fur bristling, slobber dripping from its mouth—was hurtling toward them. It showed no signs of slowing.

  This time Alistair’s dad didn’t avoid the swear, but he turned the wheel to avoid the beast. The car swerved back into the correct lane as he eased down on the brake, and the bear galloped past Keri’s open window—its breaths thick and rusty, its musk mixing with the leafy scent of the forest and nesting in Alistair’s memory. There was madness in its eyes, or maybe just wildness, an instinctual distrust of metallic things on wheels.

  “Holy hand grenade, did you see that?” Keri yelled, spinning around to look out the back window. As it reached a curve in the road, the bear bounded off the pavement and escaped into the forest.

  “We’re … all … okay?” Alistair’s dad asked.

  “Okay?” Keri said. “More than okay. That sucker was humungo!”

  “I’m fine,” Alistair’s mom said. “You’re fine, Albee? All good?”

  It had been years since she’d called him Albee. It was her baby name for him. “I’m cool,” he said, trying to sound unfazed, but his body betrayed his words. His head was on a swivel, checking the trees for hidden things.

  The car slowed to a stop. Alistair’s dad turned down the stereo. He took a deep breath and eased his hands off the wheel. “So mark that down as our first adventure of the weekend,” he said. “I’d say we’re off to a rousing start.”

  Somewhere, either on the road or in the tall wet grass, the ink on the fortune-teller bled through the paper.

  CHAPTER 14

  It had a pulse. Held against Alistair’s chest, the atlas throbbed, sending tiny vibrations through his ribs. It was a bit disconcerting. It was a bit comforting. This thing was a fortune-teller too, one of incalculable value.

  “You gotta go. Pronto. Before Dot wakes up,” Chip said, grabbing Alistair by the shoulders and moving him to the door. But when Chip dialed the code, the door drew open and revealed Dot standing on the other side.

  Hands on hips, she said, “Top of the morning.”

  “Oh … hello,” Chip responded with a sigh.

  When she spotted the book under Alistair’s arm, her reply was written all over her wince: You big dopes.

  “You know I’m right,” Chip said. “This is his destiny.”

  “There’s no such thing,” she said. “There are probabilities. You don’t know who Alistair really is. What he’s likely to do. We have to learn that first.”

  Alistair was sick of them talking about him as if he weren’t there, and he saw little point in hiding the truth from them anymore. Their goals were ultimately the same. “If it’s not my destiny, then it’s my responsibility,” he said.

  “What in the sam heck is that supposed to mean?” Dot asked.

  “I came to Aquavania through Fiona Loomis’s portal,” Alistair explained. “I stumbled in here, like all swimmers apparently. But I’m pretty sure there was once a portal that was meant for me. I was six. My goldfish died. I buried it in the backyard. My friend Charlie slept over. That night, I heard a voice coming from the water in the goldfish bowl. The bowl disappeared and the water hung there. I ignored it. Charlie obviously didn’t. He used my portal.”

  “Okay…” Chip mumbled. “So you’re saying there’s some swimmer named Charlie out there? So?”

  “No,” Alistair said, easing open his hands, which had been clenched into fists. “I’m saying that Charlie is the Whisper, that I know the Whisper. I don’t know why he is, or how he is, but I know that he is. And I’m going to find him and stop him. It’s my responsibility.”

  It felt good to get that off his chest, but only for a moment. The posture of disgust that possessed Dot’s body negated any sense of relief. “You had a portal?” she asked, her voice flirting with anger. “And the person who went through it became the Whisper? You’re sure of this?”

  Dot’s fingers curled, just a little bit. Remembering her iron grip, Alistair stepped backward and asked, “Why should it matter who the portal was meant for?”

  “Unfortunately, in this case, it kinda does,” Chip said through his teeth.

  Dot tapped her fingers on her hip, along the jumpsuit’s white curlicues. She took a step, a slow one, a careful one, and with her eyes locked on Alistair she said, “You need to stay.” There was more than anger in her voice now, more than insistence. This wasn’t a conversation anymore.

  Once again, the instinct to run was strong, but where would Alistair go? If he really was in a space station, then there probably weren’t lakes or ponds or obvious gateways. That’s when he remembered the atlas under his arm. Did he have the time to steal a glance, to scout out an exit?

  As he opened it, Dot grabbed one of the white curlicues on her jumpsuit and peeled it off. Flicking her wrist, she snapped it like a whip, and it stretched out and wrapped around Alistair’s arms and chest. It had become a lasso, glowing, buzzing, and holding him tight.

  “Don’t be foolish,” Dot said. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “You’re right.” Alistair grimaced as he struggled to free himself. “But I don’t know what you’re doing either.”

  “Helping you,” Dot replied. “Don’t force me to take more dra
stic measures.”

  All the while, Chip was standing to the side and mouthing something to Alistair. It looked like nine, eight, seven …

  “I should be free to leave,” Alistair said. “I’m a swimmer.”

  “That’s not all you are,” Dot said. “We have to run a few more tests.”

  … one, zero went Chip’s mouth as he peeled off his racing stripe, balled it up, and bounced it off the floor. This time it didn’t ricochet around the room. It struck Dot’s lasso and cut it in half. The lasso fell limp, like a decapitated snake, and Alistair could move again.

  “He’s a candidate, Chip!” Dot yelled. “We don’t know what he’s capable—”

  “So you want to hard-boil his brain?” Chip barked back. “Because I know that’s what you’ll end up doing when all the data come in. And where will that get us?”

  “It will keep us here. It will keep us safe.”

  “No,” Chip replied. “It will keep the Whisper safe. I’m done looking. This kid will have to do!”

  Like a linebacker, Chip lowered a shoulder and plowed into Alistair, picking him up and pushing him past Dot. Dot fell to the ground as the two boys crashed into the hallway. “Yellow polka-dot egg,” Chip whispered into Alistair’s ear. “Cow. Chicken. Goat. Goat. Pig. Rabbit.”

  Then Chip let go of him and skittered on hands and knees back into the room, jumped up, and sealed the door behind him, leaving Alistair alone in the hall. Dot’s screams were muffled, but still audible. “Last straw, Chip! We’re done! He’s not worth it!”

  At one end of the hallway was the gallery. At the other end, the unknown. With the atlas tucked under his arm, Alistair hustled into the unknown. Doors flanked him on both sides. They had porthole-style windows with columns of light blasting out of them. Alistair paused and pressed his face against the window on the first door. Behind it, little green men with antennae worked wrenches and screwdrivers on some elaborate bit of machinery. Alistair pushed on the door, but it didn’t move. There was a dial next to it, but he had no idea what the code was.