Echo Island

by Jared C. Wilson

  It was a reset, he thought.

  Archer’s jaw dropped. Those were the last words in the notebook. And that two-word phrase jarred him: he thought. Now he wished he’d grabbed more of the books off the shelf. But the revelation was nearly too much.

  How did they know what I was thinking?

  “We are in someone’s imagination.” Beatrice said it, not quite asking, just repeating the statement to examine it. Then she asked, “Whose imagination?”

  “There is only so much I can tell,” Jack said.

  Jason nearly fell, stumbling back onto the hearth, and put his head in his hands.

  “Are you saying,” said Beatrice, “that this is all a dream?”

  “That is one way of seeing it, but the important thing is that it is not your dream.”

  Bradley growled. “Look, dude. Just talk to us straight.”

  Once again Jack seemed to look into the air, at no one in particular, and said quietly as if to himself, “It is getting quite tedious, isn’t it? How long does this banter go on? I’m in this blasted place and stalling now. It’s time, I think.” He looked down again, this time straight to Beatrice.

  “Whose dream is it?” she asked.

  “Not a dream, exactly,” he said. “A story.”

  Jason lifted his face.

  “Yes,” Jack said. “You are the characters in a story.”

  13

  RUNNING

  Archer had run all the way back to the cabin in the dark, only tripping twice. Without bothering to knock, he’d barged back into the room, discovering a now-roaring fire illuminating the scene much as he’d left it, with Jason and Bradley talking with Beatrice and Jack. They were in mid-conversation, but he felt no compunction about interrupting with his declaration: “Someone is watching us!”

  Bradley said, “Say what now, Archway?”

  “I have proof! These notebooks. Someone is recording every last thing we say. Everything we think. There is widespread surveillance, probably involving levels of artificial intelligence up to this point unknown. I think we’re in the middle of a giant experiment. Government, maybe. I don’t know. Maybe something more mind-boggling than that. Upper-echelon type stuff. The money and technology it would take to pull off something like this is widescale. I’ve been able to break the code in the notebooks, only, it’s not a code exactly. It’s a language, I think. And somehow, I could finally read it. I know, I haven’t got it all figured out. But these things are records of everything we’ve said and done.”

  Jason looked at Jack, who was sitting silently in his desk chair and now fiddling with a pipe he’d removed from a drawer. “Everything we’ve done is written in there?” he asked Archer.

  “Yes. It’s the strangest thing.”

  Then, to Jack, Jason said, “What are the notebooks?”

  “The notebooks are a record, just as your friend suspects. But not in the way he suspects. The notebooks keep the story alive.”

  “Wait. What is he talking about?” said Archer.

  Beatrice spoke up then: “He says we’re in a story.”

  Archer stopped, rolling his eyes upward, calculating. Then he said, “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Dumber than a government simulation experiment?” Bradley said.

  “Who wrote the notebooks?” Beatrice asked.

  “I write them,” said Jack. “What the Author gives me, I write down. It all goes onto the pages, and in the end, the whole story will be there—at least, up to the point he’s done telling it.”

  “But the language,” Jason said.

  “It is a tongue from another world. There is not much I can say about that. It is a mystery the Author has not revealed.”

  Archer said, “You’re saying we’re in a story. Like, someone’s imagination? Someone’s writing this?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Who’s writing it?”

  “I cannot tell you his name. I only know he is the Author.”

  “You can’t tell us, or you don’t know?”

  “Both, I suppose.”

  Beatrice asked, “Are you the Author?”

  “No. I was an author in my time, in my world. Here, I am just a guide. As others served my purposes there, here I serve his.”

  “So he speaks to you,” Beatrice said.

  “In a way.”

  “Wait, wait,” said Archer. “You’re saying we”—he gestured broadly at Jason, Bradley, and himself—“are in a story.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I think he means like a metaphorical story,” Jason said. “As in the story of life or whatever. Telling a story with our lives.”

  “No,” said Jack. “You are characters in a novel.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Bradley.

  “No, I don’t suppose you do,” said Jack. “But you will. In time.”

  “This is insane,” said Archer. “I’m not a character in a novel. I’m standing right here, in front of you.”

  “Both realities can be true.”

  “I don’t think so,” Archer said. “If we’re characters in a novel . . . are we not real?”

  “The question is strange. Do you think? Speak? Act?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what do you think?”

  “But we’re characters in a story,” Archer replied. “You said that. That means we’re not real.”

  “The one does not necessarily entail the other.”

  “But you’re saying this whole world is made up. So it must not be real.”

  “I’m saying that the world in which this story is being written is more real than yours. But there is another world even more real than that one.”

  Archer groaned. “You’re not making sense!” Then he was struck by an idea. “Oh, okay. I know what, then. If we are characters in a story, then let’s have a look at the end of the story. Find out what happens next.”

  He bolted in front of Jack, almost bumping him out of his chair, and made for the bottom shelf of the bookcase. Pulling the last green notebook from the shelf, he opened it up to the last page. It took him a second to find the familiar strain, but the otherworldly tongue gave up its text shortly. He read:

  Pulling the last green notebook from the shelf, he opened it up to the last page. It took him a second to find the familiar strain, but the otherworldly tongue gave up its text shortly. He read:

  Archer shook his head, moaned. He stared back down at the page again and read:

  Archer shook his head, moaned. He stared back down at the page again and read:

  He slammed the notebook onto the floor.

  “The words keep changing! They keep recording exactly what I’m doing in the moment, but nothing afterward!”

  “You cannot read into your future,” Jack said, puffing on his pipe. “That is, I’m afraid, a limitation even I share with you. He tells me what I need to know to help you. But none of us can know what will happen on each next page.”

  “So, we died,” Jason said, “and became characters in a story? That’s our fate?”

  “No, no,” said Jack. “The story began before you died. You’ve been in the story all along. Entering this underworld is just part of your story.”

  “So . . .” Jason wasn’t sure he wanted to finish his thought. But he did. “Our families, our memories . . . none of that was real?”

  “They are as real as you are, my boy.”

  It was too much for Archer. He was too used to figuring things out, stretching the limits of his intellect to encompass more information and adjust to new knowledge. But this? It was like trying to catch an ocean wave in a water glass.

  “I—I—I . . . refuse!” he said.

  Bradley straightened up. “What does that mean? You refuse what?”

  “I jus
t refuse,” said Archer. He retrieved the green notebook from the floor and hurled it into the fireplace. The notebook landed in a burst of ash and a flurry of tiny red sparks.

  “Archer!” Bradley said. “Relax.”

  “No way. I refuse to submit to this violation of . . . whatever. My will, my independence. I refuse to believe I am a character in someone else’s story. Tell me it’s an alternate dimension, some portal into hyperdimensionality. As far-fetched as that is, it has a grounding in natural facts. In science. This? This is stupid. It’s superstition. This isn’t happening.”

  Jack sighed. Rising from his chair, pipe clenched in his teeth, he walked over to the fireplace and pulled the notebook from the flames. It was dingy from soot but did not appear to be burned at all. He laid it down on top of the desk.

  Archer willed himself not to wonder at this.

  “You can all believe whatever you want to believe,” Archer said. “I’m not playing this game.” And he grabbed the notebook again, this time tucking it under his arm before darting for the doorway.

  “Archer, stop!” Bradley called after him. “You just got here. It’s dark, man.”

  Archer ignored him.

  “And Tereus is still out there,” Bradley continued.

  But Archer kept walking until he was gone, slamming the door behind him.

  “It’s amazing that someone who can know so much can believe so little,” Jack said.

  “He’s going to get killed,” said Bradley. To Jason, he said, “Do something.”

  “What? Why me?”

  “You’re his friend. He listens to you.”

  “Archer doesn’t listen to anybody.” Jack settled back into his chair. “And that may be his undoing.”

  Beatrice stepped forward. “Jack. Where is this going? Are we really in a story?”

  “Yes, my dear.”

  “Is it a good story?”

  “It is.”

  Jason interrupted. “How can you say that? If what you’re saying is true, if someone is writing all of this, then he took everything from me: my mom, my dad, my brother. Everything. He even took Tim. If someone’s making this story up, he sure does take some sick pleasure in putting us through all of this. You call that good?”

  “Not at all, lad. Bad things are bad things, whether in this world or the other. By good, however, I don’t mean fun, entertaining, or easy. I mean good in the truest sense of the word. Even hard things can be good.”

  “I think I know what you mean,” said Beatrice.

  “Oh, brother,” said Jason. “You’re buying this? This isn’t one of your books, Beatrice. Some silly adventure story to pass the time. If what he’s saying is true, our lives are ruined.”

  “I don’t feel that way,” Beatrice said.

  “Of course you don’t. Your life was terrible before. You didn’t lose anything you cared about.”

  She looked at him and radiated fury. “You have no idea what I’ve lost. You have no idea what I’ve been through. You think you’ve lost a family. Well, I never had one. You don’t get to lecture me on what’s been lost.” And then her anger turned to immense grief, overwhelming her eyes with a flood cascading down her cheeks.

  Jason could say nothing.

  Her sorrow stared him down, withered him. He shrunk back to the hearth and put his back against the fire.

  “Oh man,” Bradley moaned. “I just realized something.”

  Beatrice looked sadly at him. “Do you want to run away like Archer?”

  “What? No. I just . . . man. Everyone’s going to hate me.”

  Beatrice had Jack’s handkerchief in her hand again, and she was rubbing her nose with it. “What are you talking about?” she sniffed.

  “Like, we’re characters in a story, yeah? So, somebody is reading this?” He looked at Jack. “Is somebody reading this?”

  Jack smiled. “Yes. At this very moment, someone is reading this.”

  “Good grief,” Bradley said. “They’re going to hate me. I’m, like, a terrible person.”

  “We are,” Beatrice said, “who we’ve been written to be. That’s what you’re saying?”

  “Yeah,” Bradley said, broken about the prospect of his perception. “And I’m like the jerk guy or whatever.”

  “Maybe up until now. But the story’s not over,” Beatrice said.

  “A fair, saintly Lady called to me,” Jack said, “In such wise, I besought her to command me.”1

  “Huh?” Bradley said.

  “She is wiser than even she knows.”

  “They’re gonna see all of us,” Bradley said. “Like, Jason’s the good guy, right? And Archer’s the smart one? Tim was the weak one. Beatrice is the wise one. And who am I? I’m the dumb jerk. The meathead. The guy everyone hates. And there’s no changing who we are.”

  “Is that what you think?” Jack asked.

  “That’s how it always is.”

  Jason interjected from the fireplace, “You can’t be buying into all of this.”

  “Quiet, bro,” Bradley said. “I wanna know . . .” He was looking at Jack now with utter seriousness, with desperation. He had never felt needier, more dependent, and more vulnerable than he did now. “Can I change?”

  Jack returned his gaze with the utmost tenderness. “My boy, the question is: Do you want to?”

  “Yes. But if this is a story, I have to do what’s written, right?”

  “That is exactly right. And if you want to change, you can be sure the Author has written that too. He has written the desire into you.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Regardless of what the reader thinks, maybe the Author likes you.”

  Bradley pondered this.

  “Perhaps,” Jack continued, “he means something by your not wanting to change before, becoming a wanting to change now.”

  “Come again?”

  “If you want to change,” Jack said, “then do.”

  “But what’s the point?” said Jason. “Whatever we do or don’t do, it’s all controlled. There’s an Author out there, right?”

  “Yes,” said Jack.

  “So, I can’t do whatever he’s not writing. And whatever he writes, I have to do.”

  “That is a way of looking at it.”

  “No, it’s not a way of looking at it. That’s what it is! If we’re characters in a novel, we can’t do anything he doesn’t write for us to do. We can’t think or feel or act other than what he’s writing for us. You can’t deny that.”

  “I won’t deny that.”

  “Maybe it would help if we knew more about the Author,” Beatrice said.

  “A sensible request,” said Jack.

  “Is he God?”

  “Certainly not. He is a person, and he is the Author. But he’s not God.”

  “Is there a God?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “So, the Author is not God. Is he good?”

  “How do you mean?” Jack asked.

  “Is he a good writer?”

  “Ah. He’s not terrible. To tell you the truth, the story is better than the writing.”

  “I would hate to be in a story told poorly.”

  “It’s not as bad as all that. He’s doing nearly the best he can.”

  “Is he a good person?” Beatrice asked.

  “That’s a difficult question,” said Jack. “I shall say that he means you good in the end.”

  “That’s enough for me,” she said.

  “This is all a mirage,” said Jason.

  “A story within a story,” she whispered in awe.

  Jason stood. “Maybe what you’re saying is true. But I don’t have to like it. I think Archer has the right idea. I refuse to be part of whatever story this Author wants to tell.”

  “But,” Jack sai
d, “the story here is not finished.”

  Jason placed his hands on the armrests of the chair and leaned down to look into Jack’s face.

  “Yes, it is,” Jason said. And then he walked out of the door and into the night.

  Beatrice turned to Jack. “Will he come back?”

  “I am sure,” Jack said. “With some coaxing.”

  “How is it going to end?” Beatrice asked. She was rubbing her eyes.

  “I don’t know,” Jack said. “You will have to find out.”

  “What do we have to do?” said Bradley.

  “Think of your favorite stories.”

  “I don’t really read,” Bradley admitted.

  “I do,” Beatrice said.

  “And your favorite story, young lady?”

  “It’s called The Green Notebook.”

  “And what happens in The Green Notebook?”

  “Oh, lots of things. But mainly, the demigod Meleager goes on adventures. He’s trying to win the favor of the village and turn away the wrath of his father. There are lots of battles.”

  Bradley perked up. “Tereus,” he said.

  Beatrice had been smiling but she stopped.

  “We have to . . . do what?” Bradley asked. “Fight him?”

  “I never want to see him again,” she said.

  The image of Tereus’s hulking figure emerging from the doorway of flames rushed back into Bradley’s mind. He had barely survived their first encounter. Tim did not, proving that even if they were dead in the story, they could die again. And what then? What came next?

  “If I go to fight him,” he said, “will I win?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jack.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “I don’t know that part of the story. The Author has not revealed it to me.”

  “Let’s just stay here,” Beatrice said. “We can be safe here.”

  “You are safe here,” said Jack. “You would be safe in many places. But safe is not the point. Safe does not make for a good story.”