I didn’t remember going to sleep, but the next thing I knew, I was being jostled to waking by Long John and Randy on either side of me. They were both bending down, gathering up their backpacks and looking around outside the car windows. We were just outside of the market town in Nonfiction. On one side desert stretched like a rosy ocean glinting in the early morning sun until it met the mountains to the north, capped in snow. Nonfiction mountains. They looked detailed and dangerous; nothing like the Metaphorical Mountains which bordered Fantasy.
On the other side was a sprawling town of huts, shanties, low buildings made from things like mud, wood, stone, and rusty sheets of metal. This was where the dirt road ended; it was swallowed up by sand and became the desert itself. This was our stop.
“Is it just me or is this place even bigger than I remember it?” I asked as I climbed out of the van’s sliding door. My legs felt stiff and sore from the ride.
“Oh, it’s bigger,” Randy said, looking out toward the town. We were still a good half a mile away, but we could already see it coming to life: smoke coming from chimneys, people, donkeys, camels, and mules, moving around, ant-like and busy. “It’s not just Fiction that’s growing with Self Pubs; it’s Non-Fiction, too. You should see Memoir,” Randy said, making a face. “Anyway, we should get going. Rogers?”
“Yes sir.” Rogers had climbed down from the driver’s seat and was stretching his arms over his head. He immediately snapped to a salute, and did a really good job of ignoring my laugh.
“Uh… at ease. Can you, Davies, and Johnson please head the group? I’m going to stay in the back. Make sure we don’t miss anyone while we’re walking.”
Maybe it was because we were so close to Nonfiction, and soon would be in the Real World, but in that moment I truly appreciated the young Detectives’ similar militant enthusiasm and Genre-perfect names. There were probably officers in the Real World named things like Georgina Higglesworth.
“Sir, yes sir,” Rogers and the two women said as one. They moved toward the front of our group—all of us unified only in our lack of continuity. Some of us were stretching, yawning, scratching ourselves in places you usually don’t hear about in Fiction (at least not this kind of Fiction). Long John had removed his baseball bat leg and was massaging the stump where it connected; Ogre was trying to be discrete about putting sand in his nose; Mattie stood next to the officers, arms crossed and impatient. She looked a lot like Officer Sarah Davies.
“What?” she asked as the group finally got its act together and starting trudging through the sand and toward the village.
“Nothing. Just looks like you missed your calling,” I said and nodded toward the detectives. They were not speaking (most of the rest of the group could be heard saying things like “I didn’t know there was walking involved!” “Are you quite sure crowns are not fashionable in the Real World?”) and looked straight ahead toward the town’s entrance.
“Maybe so. But it certainly doesn’t take a detective to figure out who Dr. Albrecht is working with in the Book World.”
“WHAT? HOW DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?”
“Shh, Peter. Don’t Caps now if you don’t want everyone to know about it,” she managed to whisper. “It wasn’t too hard to hear you guys in the van; I was sitting right next to you.”
“Oh right. Well then, who do you think it is?”
“Oh please, Peter. It’s obvious: A little birdy told me you’re planning something of a surprise for me. Clearly some bird from the book world is communicating with her; telling her your plans. How many bird villains do you know of in Fiction?”
“I don’t know. Twelve?” I was a little miffed that she was allowed italicize and I wasn’t allowed to Caps.
“No, Peter. Just one that matters: Pen.”
“Pen the Penguin? No way. She’s locked up in some sort of insane asylum, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but wouldn’t that just be the perfect place to put a tiny wormhole? No one would expect it. She could have sent the serum out to Pen, and Pen could have had someone inject it in Alan and Bob. I’m sure of it, Peter.”
I was going to respond that perhaps Mattie hadn’t missed her calling as a Detective after all, because this theory had more holes in it than the Stinky Cheese Man’s face, but as I opened my mouth, I received quite a lot of backpack in it. I’d run into Rogers in front of me. A moment later, Randy had hustled up to the front of the group.
“Okay, everyone. Here we are. We’re going straight through the market and into the Black Market. No shopping,” he added to Kiki who was craning her neck toward a nearby table of purses. “If anyone stops you, alert myself, Rogers, Davies, or Johnson and we’ll show them identification. Ready?”
With a general murmur of consent, and one “Arrr, let’s get out there!” from Long John, we started winding our way through the meandering market streets. Under our feet, the loose sand gave way to gravel roads, worn and pressed like concrete by the constant footsteps. We were surrounded by the smells of tanning leather, roasting meats, curries and spices, donkey manure, and that electric smell the air takes on before a storm. Sure enough, it looked like the storm from Fiction was close on our heels, and dark clouds rolled in fast and foreboding. With one crack of lightening and a boom of thunder that shook the earth, rain began to pour in earnest. We kept walking, dodging shopkeepers scrambling across the street to get their items out of the rain. The market around us was shutting down for the storm.
The further we walked, the quieter it got, until finally we reached the nearly deserted alleyway I knew led to the Black Market. I could see the little booth ahead of us to the left, just at the mouth of an alleyway that’s darkness had no place in a daytime setting. The booth was just the same as I’d remembered it—a little hutch with dangling night vision goggles hung on hooks, but this time, there was a pink and polka-dotted umbrella poking up from behind it. A moment later, the umbrella came around to greet us, Amala underneath it.
“Hello, Detective Potts. Hello, everyone,” she said, ducking her head in greeting to us all. Again, she wore black scarf covering most of her face. “I have the list you all sent over with names, and so I will check you off as I hand out your goggles. This way, please,” she said, gesturing toward Mattie. One by one, we told Amala our names, she checked us off her list, and handed us our goggles. It was only when Ogre lumbered up to the front of the line that she paused.
“Oh my.”
“What’s that?” Randy asked, distractedly. He was struggling to help Merlin put on his goggles.
“Detective Potts, it’s just that… Well, we don’t have any ogres in Nonfiction. I mean, only the ones passing through or living here. But there are no ogres from Nonfiction. So I find it highly unlikely that there will be ogres living in the Real World.”
“Get out of here,” I said, lifting my goggles to rest on top of my head. “No ogres in the Real World? What about Shrek?”
Randy shook his head slightly in one of those stop talking sort of ways.
“I guess I didn’t even think about that,” he said, rubbing his hand over his face. “Okay. This is unexpected, but we’ll make due. Ogre?”
“OGRE!” Ogre said.
“I’m going to have you stay here with Amala in Nonfiction until we get back. You can help her greet people who need to pass through to the Black Market! How does that sound?”
…
“Okay, good then. Amala, thank you so much for alerting me to this. I can’t imagine what else they might not have out there… Do you think they have Detectives like me out there?”
“Sure.”
“Wizard Detectives?”
“Probably so, Randy,” she said, her eyes crinkling up at the corners.
“Right. Well then, we better be off. Does everyone have their goggles?” he called, turning around to face everyone. There was a general murmur of “yeses” and “Duh, look at my faces,” and “Aaarrrrs,” and so one by one we followed Randy into the darkness.
On either sid
e of the narrow alleyway, booths and carts were set up, strewn with odd objects: unnecessarily specific brands of obscure products (“Quaker State Advanced Durability 10W-30 Conventional Motor Oil!”, “Oral B Professional Floss Action, Precision 3500!”). People wearing masks and scarves over their faces milled about; it was only misting here. I noticed a lot of cautious glances in our direction.
“Randy,” I caught up to him, who was now leading the group and Rogers, Davies, and Johnson were dispersed throughout, keeping a close eye on everyone. The Black Market was a dangerous place. “Do you have any idea how Pen the Penguin is doing?”
“Pen the Penguin? Where on Earth did that come from? Hm. Well, Pen was doing really well last time I checked, Peter. She’s received some of the best psychological care in Fiction over the past two years. I think she’s back to being the emblem for the publishing house, at least part-time. Oh, hello, Davos!” Randy added, waving to an older man wearing furs and a pouch around his neck. When he waved back, I noticed the fingers on his left hand were shorter.
“You mean Pen isn’t even in the institution anymore? She’s out?”
“Oh yes, Peter. She’s living in some sort of group home near Sci Fi these days. She’s still closely monitored and under the care of extremely competent psychologists. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
I kept walking, feeling that this might not be the best time to tell Randy that maybe we should be worried about it. But one thing at a time: stop Destiny, then deal with whoever was helping her out. Besides, my conflict said Destiny, not Pen. Plain and simple.
As we walked down the long alleyway of the Black Market, the group was quiet. Randy walked in front of me, Mattie to my right; just behind us, Merlin, and to his right, Long John. Somewhere behind them trailed the rest of the group, who I was only aware of by the sound of their footsteps.
“We almost there, then Peter?” Long John whispered. I glanced back and saw that he was looking out at the stalls in distaste. “Bunch of thieves running around in here.”
“But you were a thief,” I pointed out.
“Course I was. Don’t want to run into any of my old crowd, do I?”
I told Long John we were nearly there, though really, I had no idea. The green, glowing light of the night vision goggles made everything look the same to me. But then, not ten seconds after I’d said it, I noticed someone very familiar.
“Cerberus,” Randy and I said at the same time. After my initial, horrifying meeting of the three-headed monster dog, I felt like we were old friends. Cerberus, though, wasn’t feeling too chummy.
“Randy, you doin’ alright? Listen, what’s been going on out there? Everyone is scrambling, asking me if they can somehow get their backstories. People are scared of being erased again. Is someone Out There erasing characters like last year?”
“Of course not, Cerberus.” Randy fidgeted uncomfortably. He was a terrible liar; not the best quality for a detective.
“Then what happened to Alan? I heard from a guy who knows a guy whose sister works at that psych hospital in Fictional Oregon that he’s in there with something… weird going on.”
“Nothing you need to worry about, Cerberus, if we can get out there and put a stop to this.”
Cerberus seemed to recognize that the conversation was over, so he stepped aside, his mane of snakes hissing softly and two of his three heads looking rather uncomfortable. The middle one, however, said “Okay, no problem, Randy. We’ll see you on the other side. And Randy—good luck.”
And so one by one, we walked through the door and into, what I was beginning to suspect was an old, abandoned middle school. We passed through the cafeteria without any fuss or description, and only once we got to the bathroom did anything become worth mentioning.
“It’s weird without Alan here,” I muttered to Randy as we all piled into the room. It was a large bathroom and plenty big for all our group, but with all of the officers already in the space watching the wardrobe, it was packed. I was pressed up against Kiki in a way that probably would have been described a lot differently in her genre—but this is a humor/fantasy, and I just felt uncomfortable.
“Okay, one at a time then,” Randy called out to the room. I was just next to the bathroom stall with the wardrobe on it and when I turned around to see the jumble of characters getting ready to go out into the Real World for the first time. Long John: his face pale, but his jaw set determinedly. Merlin: looking politely curious and like he might have been trying to remember something. Mattie: her arms crossed, staring impatiently at the stall door. The four Lost Boys were in a whispered conversation and didn’t seem to register this as any greater adventure than the ones they’d had. Geppetto was standing in the middle of Phil, Willy, and Nilly who were looking in different directions sullenly, Nilly folding her arms over her chest. Kiki and Princess Babroulbadour were standing side by side, Kiki putting on mascara holding a hand mirror, Princess Babroulbadour was sharpening a knife on a stone. And then there was Jenny’s dad, Jerry. He was standing to my left, sandwiched between two officers, his thumbs looped into the straps of his backpack. He was closing his eyes, muttering something under his breath, and then he opened them and looked directly at me. He gave me a single nod before disappearing through the stall door and off to the Other Side with Randy.
“Oh. My. God,” she said again. Kiki had come through the wardrobe last, and of all of us, seemed to be having the hardest time. She was sprawled on the wooden floor, blond hair, not cascading at it would in Romance, but hanging in sweaty strips in front of her face, and her whole body shaking. I, too, felt the Real World pressing in on me—could feel the pain of just existing in my joints—but she was taking it hard. Perhaps because she was from Romance, arguably the furthest genre from the Real World of them all. “How can you stand it? This is… I mean, just look—look at my hands!” At this she held them up, her shiny, written, Fictionally-flawless hands were more or less the exact same. “There are freckles on these hands! I’m already getting too Real! Take me back!”
“Calm down,” I said, feeling each of her shrill words burrow its way into the middle of my head. “Here, have some chocolate.”
“I can’t eat chocolate! I’m a leading lady in Romance!”
“Suit yourself.” I looked around at the rest of the room; most everyone else looked shaky, but much better off with their chocolate. Randy had, as promised, taken us all through the wardrobe one by one, and then we’d traveled through Narnia together as a group. Two days later* we arrived on this side of the wardrobe.
*Let’s just say we were delayed by a certain Queen of a certain Underland and it took a couple of days to get through. But we can’t talk about that here.
As Kiki’s wails (“Are there no soul mates here? Do people not fall in love over swapped coffee orders? Is there no true love?! What is this horrible place??!!!”) subsided into little hiccupping sobs, and finally, after reluctantly eating some chocolate, into somber acceptance, the rest of us were pulling the supplies we’d need from our backpacks.
Geppetto, the four Lost Boys, and Princess Badroulbadour knew that the authors of Pinocchio, Peter Pan, and Aladdin, and Cinderella had died ages ago, so they were off to Disney to see what they could do. They gathered their characters’ backstories, their passports, money, and cell phones (“Oh my, there are so many more apps out here than in the Book World!”) and with our wishes of luck, walked up the rickety wooden stairs and out of the dimly-lit room. Above us, a dog barked briefly, something crashed to the floor and
“Why does that keep happening?” I asked the room at large. “Does anyone else hear typing?”
“No time, Peter. Okay, Mattie and Merlin, you’re off to pay a visit to… ah that’s right, Bryce Dingsworth and Amanda Woodensby, authors of Bill the Banana Tree’s and the three fairies’ books. Or should I say, soon-to-be-authors. Yes, it looks like they both live in Georgia just an hour or so away from each other.” Randy was consulting the list of characters and author names I’d brought along.
He looked up. “Do you have everything you need to get to the airport? If not, I’m sure the lovely young woman upstairs will be happy to help you. She’s only been friendly to me when I’ve seen her, and seem completely unfazed that I showed up in her home unannounced. Not even surprised. Anyway, she’s the best.”
“What?”
“The best.”
Putting aside my growing suspicion about the Person Upstairs, I instead turned my attention back to Mattie and Merlin. Merlin still looked politely curious; he was looking above me through one of the high windows of the room; the light filtering through it made his upturned face look majestic. Mattie looked impatient.
“We’re ready, Randy. We’ll see you in Narnia. Peter,” she added, her face losing some of its edge for just a moment. “Try not to die.” And with that, she grabbed Merlin’s shoulder and marched him up the steps and into the Real World beyond.
This left myself, Randy, Long John, Kiki, Jerry, and the three triplets. Reluctantly, Kiki agreed to help Phil, Willy, and Nilly on their quest to find the elusive James M. Hardon, author of the, admittedly terrible series of Gorndalf books. Since it was only recently that Ashby de la Zouch had even been mentioned in Fiction, we had no way of knowing yet if there was a library or Internet Café, so they left with only a vague plan of: find Internet, search for Hardon.
“And go to In and Out—”
“Alright, from now on, we’re following all dialogue with names. This has gone far enough,” Randy said.
We bid them goodbye, and then it was just Randy, Long John, Jerry, and me. We had Destiny to face.
When we got outside, the blue sedan I remembered vaguely from my first trip to the Real World was parked alongside the green yard. I hadn’t noticed before just how real it looked—heavy, metal, dingy, dirty. Everything did.
“Okay, take it easy,” Randy said as he put a hand on Long John’s shoulder to steady him. He was blinking in the sunlight, his eyes streaming and darting rapidly around, taking in the grass, the trees, the little stone garden path, the sky beyond forever. There was so much more of it than books could hold. Behind him Jerry had a hand over his opened mouth, perhaps stifling a scream or a laugh; he looked somewhere in between. We made our way to the car like drunk pinballs, Jerry and Long John careening into each other, tripping over their own feet. It was disorienting—I remembered from my first time. But perhaps even more unsettling was the fact that this time around it was so much easier for me.
The Actual Account of Peter Able Page 12
