by James Cole
First he tiptoed to the front section of the cabin where the captain’s chair and the boat controls were located. Vacant was the ignition slot, and a slipshod search of the immediate vicinity revealed no key but Jeremy minded little. Driving a stolen houseboat across the open, soon-to-be-illuminated waters of the lake would likely get him caught anyway. What really tweaked his interest was the small kitchenette, or, more specifically, the little refrigerator it housed. Jeremy was more than thrilled to find the package of hotdogs inside. It didn’t matter that the boat’s owner would notice his food missing. Those hotdogs were coming with him.
Like a quarterback too-long in the pocket, Jeremy felt the clock ticking and would have immediately left, food-in-hand, had he not noticed the table. Strewn across its surface were several maps or, more precisely, aerial photos of Reefers Woods. Jeremy recognized them right off because there were, lying around his apartment, some of the same representations. His, he had printed from a specific online site for the purpose of locating the lotus swamps. The logo on these maps matched his, and the web address printed along the bottom of each page verified their common origin.
Could the fact that these maps were printed from the same web site be a coincidence? This, he doubted. Besides Jinni, only Monika had been privy to his maps. He plainly remembered telling Monika, at her insistence, how he used the maps to find the lotus swamps and where he obtained the maps. Might the houseboat, anchored off the southern shoreline of Reefers Woods, belong to Monika? It made sense, in light of the maps and her well-documented connections to the area.
A soft sound – a clunk – of unknown origin prompted Jeremy to look nervously about. Was someone there? The ease with which he found, boarded, and gained entry to the houseboat made him very uneasy. He felt as if this were a ship found deserted in the Bermuda Triangle and that he was being baited. Would the ghosts of the dead crew – or Monika – suddenly materialize and steal away his immortal soul?
Get a grip, Jeremy told himself. No one is here.
He turned his attention to one map in particular that had been marked over with red ink. Interestingly, a heavy, X-marks-the-spot annotation had been scratched next to the meandering ribbon of Sticks River at a place where the river split. Jeremy knew of only one such bifurcation of the channel, that of The Devil’s Crotch. For whatever reason, Monika had circled that sheer-walled mini-mountain that bordered the rapids. Further emphasizing the spot on the map was a label she printed, also in red ink: The King’s Pinnacle, it read.
As Jeremy wondered what all this might mean, he heard the hum of something – an engine of some sort. Someone was coming. He stuffed the map into his back pocket and scrambled out of the cabin. There, approaching from the north, were two headlights aimed directly at the boat and closing fast. Jeremy did not wish to bump into either of the two possible parties – Monika or the police – that might be tooling around the lake in the predawn gloom.
Jeremy lunged up the steps and through the open sliding-glass door and paddled quickly away in a heading that kept the houseboat between him and the encroaching lights. Had the two jet-skis bypassed the boat, he would certainly have been caught, revealed by their headlights. As it was, he was able to slip away undetected. As he made for the relative cover of the shoreline, he watched two vague shadows clamber aboard the houseboat and disappear within the cabin. It was impossible to positively identify them but he had to assume that one of the dark shapes belonged to Monika. Jeremy had no clue as to the possible identity of the other person.
As thrilled Jeremy was to escape, he realized that in his frenzy to leave he had forgotten one very important item. He wondered what the two individuals just come to the boat would infer from the package of hotdogs left behind in plain view, fresh from the fridge, sitting like a beacon among the maps on the table. He wondered also how quickly they would recognize that one of their maps had gone missing.
Chapter 48
Monday, December 22
While he paddled, Jeremy pondered the significance of the maps he found on the boat. At first he theorized that Monika might be using them to search for additional lotus habitat, but something made him wonder if she might be looking for something else.
Ever since Jeremy had arrived in the woods, Grady’s words had flooded his mind. This time, Jeremy recalled something Grady said the day they met, that “Reefers Woods holds the source of certain objects of desire, both good and evil.”
Reefers Woods holds the source…
Could it be that Grady’s source and the Source from Monika’s ceremony were one and the same? Could it be that the Source was one of the so-called evil objects of desire referred to by Grady? Somehow, it made sense in Jeremy’s mind. Had Monika used the maps to find the Source in the same way Jeremy had used them to find the lotus swamps? It pained him to think that he might have done the very thing that Grady had warned him not to do from the beginning: loosed this evil object of desire, via Monika, onto the world.
By the time Jeremy reached the place where Sticks River emptied into the lake, the earliest twinges of dawn had materialized above the tree line to the east. He could not risk staying exposed on the open water for much longer. As the river’s current was negligible this close to the lake, Jeremy continued upstream a ways before stopping. He dragged the canoe farther than necessary into the woods on the east side of the river and paced about as he tried to determine what his next move should be. One option, based solely on the concept of self-preservation, would be to camp here until nightfall and then to paddle to the other side of the lake under cover of darkness. Making it to the other side undetected would greatly enhance his chances of eluding the police, at least in the short term.
The other option had nothing to do with getting away but everything to do with what Grady would have him do. Grady had said, “With knowledge comes responsibility. By knowing more you must do more.”
Jeremy definitely knew more – he knew the location of the Source – and he could not deny that he knew what he was supposed to do next. Grady – or rather Dream-Grady – had made that abundantly clear. Under normal circumstances, Jeremy would have thought it laughable that anyone, especially him, would undertake what could be an ill-advised, even dangerous, course based on a dream. Wasn’t he supposed to be the scientist, the logical one? He was, but the more Jeremy reflected on the wedding dream, the more he understood that it was less like a dream and more like – for lack of a better word – a vision. Had it not been for it – that vision – he likely would have gone through with the ceremony. Grady’s role in the vision, besides his obvious objections to Jeremy taking the vow, was defined by the words he uttered:
The task falls to you. You must destroy the Source.
Did Grady mean for him to rip the chalice from Monika’s clutch and spill it, like a blood sacrifice, onto the altar in the abandoned church? Perhaps, but more likely he meant for Jeremy to find where she got it, that is, the source of the Source, and destroy it. But what of the police? Jeremy could worry about the cops all he wanted but, somehow, he sensed that this business of Grady, Monika and the Source trumped his legal troubles.
Though Jeremy still did not know what the Source was, other than the mysterious elixir from Monika’s ceremony, he now had a notion where it could be found. That he learned from the aerial pictures and Monika’s big red X at the place she called the King’s Pinnacle. Jeremy had not known it as such, but he was familiar with that 100-foot-high chunk of rock that bordered the rapids of The Devil’s Crotch, as he and Jinni had, once upon a time, walked its perimeter looking for a way to the top.
When Jeremy pulled out the map stolen from the houseboat, he noticed – and subsequently remembered – the stream that ran underground on the back side of the King’s Pinnacle. Interestingly, he thought he could just make out its re-emergence on the other side of the sheer rock wall. But, since water does not run uphill, that could only mean that what he had assumed to be a solid block of rock was actually hollowed out on the inside. This Jeremy
had not expected. This new information, interesting as it might be, did nothing to help him comprehend what the Source might be or how the maps helped Monika find it. Perhaps the copious red ink obscured it. With a clean copy, he might better be able to discern what was hiding inside but the most expedient course of action would be to hike the five miles to the King’s Pinnacle. If he could find a way inside, he could then see the Source for himself and decide if he should or should not heed Grady’s decree and destroy it.
His decision settled, Jeremy flipped the canoe and threw enough leaves and branches on top to break up its shape. He struck out in a northerly direction, following the river channel toward The Devil’s Crotch and the King’s Pinnacle; toward the Source. As he walked, he realized that, even after the 12 hours of nonstop walking and canoeing, his body was not yet weary. He had not trained at all during the past few weeks, and, absent that measuring stick, Jeremy wondered if perhaps the increased endurance that allowed him to finish first at the triathlon had faded. The way he now felt, strong and fresh, reassured him that the strengthening effect remained with him. After all the time he and June spent studying the effect, and after June was likely murdered by Dr. Cain on account of it, he was at least happy to know that he had not lost it.
*****
It took two more hours of walking, but the unmistakable sound of water churning informed him that his destination was near. Jeremy stopped when he came upon the place where he and Jinni had camped before, near where they crawled from the river after being spit out the tail end of The Devil’s Crotch. For no better reason than for old time’s sake, he would sleep the day away here.
As he lay in the tent, he recalled that Sunday in September and how wonderful it felt lying next to Jinni, but something else of significance occurred that night, something that played a crucial role in his escape from Monika’s ceremony in the abandoned church.
The wedding dream, the animated Christ, the specter of what the ceremony might cause him to become, the vow, and Monika’s malevolent expression – all these things had been plenty to get him moving away from the altar. But, halfway up the aisle, when Monika cued the music of Singe, he faltered. The music had a hold over him and hearing it overrode his good sense. At that moment he had been a hair’s breadth away from turning back to Monika – to drink her elixir and take her vow – and he might have, had it not been for the epiphany that swept over him. At that moment, as he teetered, halfway between staying and leaving, halfway between the altar and the tree of his eventual escape, Jeremy remembered where he first heard the song he loved. It was not at the Singe show or that first night with Monika in his car at the break in the road. No, he heard it for the first time right here in the heart of Reefers Woods, back in September, before the Singe show and before he met Monika.
How he could have forgotten, he did not know, but it wasn’t until that pivotal moment in the church that this other dream, his vision of the real – in all its majesty – came back to him. It was inside that vision where he first heard the song, and the Singe version – as captivating as it was – could not hold a candle to the dream version. The Singe version consisted of four parts, played by four members of an earthly band. In the vision Jeremy was somehow able to discern each of a million marvelously intertwined parts, generated by the legion of dream-beings.
And, just as the song Jeremy loved echoed, but did not reproduce the grand music of the vision, the Unreal delivered but a fleeting moment of ecstasy that could not compare to the transcending euphoria of the vision. Every time Jeremy listened to the song he loved, he should have been reminded of that vision and all that it represented; instead he thought of that first night out with Monika. The Unreal had not opened up his mind like she said it would. Rather, it had closed his mind to the hidden realms revealed in his vision. Singe’s version of the music and the Unreal’s version of the euphoria were but cheap imitations; that which he experienced in the vision were of the real.
This did not mean that the Unreal did not have the capacity to change a person. Monika indicated as much when she said that the Unreal opens up a person’s mind, implying the effect of setting one free. However, Jeremy’s sense of the change that had begun to occur in him was more like a binding up. The Unreal burrowed a hole on the inside, an insatiable longing that could only be filled with more of the thing that dug the hole in the first place. Likewise, Monika’s presence was of an addicting nature. The more he took of her, the less satisfied he was and the more he wanted.
Claire’s Way, touted by Monika, focused on this world and this life to the exclusion of anything else that might be out there. The memory of that first night out with Monika and the Unreal covered over the glorious feeling he experienced in his vision like cheap wallpaper over the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. On more than one occasion, she referred to the circumstances of this or that Unreal-fueled moment as just like heaven. But be that as it may, just like heaven may be like heaven, but it is not heaven; it is an imposter, just as he now knew Monika also to be.
But how was it that the songs of Singe reproduced, more or less, the same music Jeremy first heard in a dream? The music of Singe was unreleased and, prior to their Halloween show, had never been played in public. How, then, did the music come to be composed and played by Singe? What if the music of Singe also flowed to them from elsewhere, that they essentially plagiarized it from the same vision of the real Jeremy experienced on the night he and Jinni camped here in the shadow of the King’s Pinnacle? Might one of the band members of Singe have shared the same vision?
It wouldn’t be the first time Jeremy had shared something akin to a vision. He and Monika had both seen the mysterious children of Reefers Woods in what Jeremy initially characterized as a shared hallucination and, later, as a waking dream. Dreams, hallucinations, visions – they all seemed interconnected, especially in the context of Reefers Woods.
He and Monika were the only two souls – with the possible exception of Claire – who perceived the strange children of Reefers Woods. Therefore, it seemed likely that if anyone else was privy to the vision of the real and the music integral to it, it was Monika. Tellingly, Monika’s connections to the band were evident. She attended the Singe show and provided him with a compact disc with their songs before anybody else in the world had a copy, and Jeremy recognized at least two members of the band at the transformation ceremony. Putting it all together, it seemed reasonable, even likely, that Monika was the one who brought to earth, or manifested, so to speak, the music of the vision. Singe might even be a creation entirely of Monika’s own making. That the title of the band – Singe – alluded to fire also seemed especially significant considering Monika’s association of fire with the Unreal.
Do you know what it is to burn? Burn, baby, burn.
But why? What motivation might Monika have to assemble the band to play music she first heard in a vision? Jeremy thought he knew the answer. Monika used the music, the Unreal, and her charisma to suck people in, to acquire followers of what she referred to as Claire’s Way, and it worked. Jeremy had experienced the allure first-hand and he had seen it at work with the members of Monika’s group, who seemed perfectly willing to give themselves away, without even knowing for certain what they were committing to. In that sense, Claire’s Way could be likened to a cult with Monika as its charismatic leader.
Before crossing over into the realm of sleep, Jeremy’s rambling mind touched on – but could not answer – one final question: What enabled Monika and him to share in these visions and hallucinations that others seemed unable to perceive? What was it that he and Monika had in common?
*****
At dusk Jeremy awoke, ready to proceed with his plan to identify and destroy the Source. Unfortunately, it hinged on finding a way to the inside of the King’s Pinnacle. This evening was the second time Jeremy had walked its perimeter; however, the conclusions reached were the same as before. The only obvious way past the sheer rock walls was up and over, but one would have to have specialized cli
mbing equipment and knowhow to accomplish that feat.
Stumped, he re-examined the map he took from the houseboat. Jeremy noticed for the first time another map printed on the flip side of the first. It took him a little while to figure out that this other map was a small-scale version of the same area, stretching from the river all the way to Sticks River Road and as far as the lake five miles to the south. Using his ailing flashlight, he picked out a solitary structure just inside the northeast border of the map, next to Sticks River Road. It was Grady’s house and it beckoned to Jeremy. He could not stay out here forever. It had been 48 hours since he last ate, and though he knew he could probably hold out a couple more days, he would eventually need nourishment. Grady’s house, if it were unoccupied, might be the perfect place to score some food. Jeremy certainly could not see himself be-bopping into any fast-food restaurant or grocery store anytime soon.
One last feature Jeremy noticed on the map was the tiny squiggly line that connected the King’s Pinnacle and Grady’s house. It was the stream, and, conveniently, it cut across the intervening five miles of forest, leading directly to Grady’s house. Even if he deemed it too dangerous to go all the way to Grady’s house, Jeremy could conceivably follow the stream until he was close enough to civilization to get reception on his phone. Once in range, he could call Tavalin. If Tavalin had done his part and informed the police of Dr. Cain’s apparent culpability in June’s murder, Jeremy might already be in the clear. Perhaps, for once, Tavalin would be the bearer of good news.
As he headed out, Jeremy dreamed of the comforts of a home – things like a hot shower, a comfortable couch on which to lie, maybe even the smell of a frozen pizza cooking in Grady’s oven – though he realized that was asking a little much. The best he could hope for was some information from Tavalin and a few cans of food and not to get caught.
