“Exactly,” he said. “I did the same thing with Chip and Dot. And Jenny. I’m not them, really, but I can access their thoughts and feelings if I need to. I prefer not to delve into the personal stuff if I can help it. They deserve their privacy. They deserve some secrets.”
“You know, Mom and Dad will just think that Fiona and Charlie told you those things. Before they left.”
“I know.”
“So what’s the point? If you’re trying to convince them about Aquavania, then you’re doing a craptastic job.”
“I’m not trying to convince them,” he said. “I’m trying to convince you.”
“I’m convinced, I’m convinced,” I said. “But why would that matter? How have I been any help? What have I done?”
“You’ve listened,” he said. “You’ve written things down. You will remember. You will tell the story.”
“Why do I need to tell the story?”
“Because one of the things that might happen to me is I might forget it.”
“How could you predict what you’re going to forget?” I asked. “And how can I remember a story that I only know bits and pieces of?”
“Fair enough,” he said. “How much time do you have?”
I looked at my wrist, as if to check my watch. I don’t wear a watch, so I shrugged and replied, “We’re not back in school for another week.”
“Let me fill in the blanks,” he said.
And he did. Boy, did he. But I’ll have to tell you about that later, Stella. And why’s that?
Because I’ve got blanks to fill in of my own.
WORLDS COLLIDE
Princess Sigrid (remember her?) had a secret that no potion would ever make her forget. She didn’t like being a princess, not even when she was young, at the age when she was supposed to be enamored of pink dresses and tiaras. Back then, long before her trusted advisor, Po (remember him?), had started putting a potion of forgetfulness in her evening stew (remember that?), she wished that she could live somewhere else, in another world where she could lead a simpler life.
Guess what? Someone, or rather something, could grant her this wish. Sigrid knew local legends that told of a horrible beast that lived in a forest bog and was called the Dorgon (remember the Dorgon?). This beast was a master of potions that could do almost anything you could imagine. Sigrid knew her parents would not approve of her visiting the Dorgon, and she knew her trusted advisor, Po, always reported back to her parents. And so, one foggy night, she snuck out of the onyx tower in which she lived, disguised herself as a peasant with a head wrap and a ratty dress, and she made her way alone to the forest.
Almost immediately, she found herself lost in the fog. When a wagon pulled up beside her, she asked for a ride.
“Certainly, miss,” said the driver. “What’s yer name, if ya don’t mind me asking?”
She climbed aboard, over a blanket in the back that covered a lumpy mass that she assumed was a fresh harvest of carrots and squash. “My name is … Henrietta,” she said.
“Tom,” said the man, tipping his hat and grinning widely. “Tom Rondrigal. Where might you be going?”
“You won’t take me if I told you,” she said.
“Try me.”
“The Dorgon.”
Rondrigal cackled and took a sip from a bladder that hung from a strap over his shoulder. “Are you plannin’ to kill me, then, so that you might toss me into that bog?”
“Um … no, sir,” she said. “Why would I ever?”
“Because if you’re wanting a potion, the Dorgon will be wanting a dead body,” Rondrigal said, and he reached over and tapped her nose with a knobby, scabby finger.
“Oh heavens,” she replied.
Rondrigal cackled again. “You’re no killer, I can tell that much.”
“What am I to do?” she said. “I need a potion.”
“You could sell me your soul,” he told her. “And I’ll give you a dead body in return.”
Her soul? Could such a thing be for sale? Surely not, she thought. It wasn’t a physical object, so how could someone else buy it? And after she was dead and gone, what use was there for it? Sigrid believed in science, not in an afterlife.
“That’s all you’d want?” she asked. “My soul?”
“Yes, your everlasting soul,” he said. “You do realize this means that if I happen to perish before you, then I’ll be taking your soul to the afterlife with me?”
“Fine by me,” she said. “It’s a deal as long as the dead body you give me is already dead. I do not condone killing.”
Another cackle burst from Rondrigal’s mouth, and then he peeled the blanket away from the back of his wagon to reveal a pile of dead bodies. Fish, reptiles, mammals … people. “Pick one,” he said.
Horrified, Sigrid reached in and grabbed the smallest thing she could find. A hummingbird.
* * *
A few hours later, Sigrid was collecting her potion. A hummingbird was usually not a large enough payment, but since Sigrid was a young girl, the Dorgon made an exception. “Drink this and you will go to other worlds, you will live different lives,” the Dorgon said as it handed her the potion. “It will be a difficult journey, so you best be prepared.”
“I am,” she said. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“It’ll take a lot,” the Dorgon said, and it slipped back into the bog without another word.
Sigrid asked Tom Rondrigal to bring her back to the spot where he’d found her, and he happily obliged. “Enjoy the potion,” Rondrigal said as Sigrid hopped down from his ghastly wagon. “I’ll be enjoying your soul.”
Then he took off into the fog, cackling as he went.
* * *
Back at the onyx tower, Sigrid climbed into bed and took a sip of the potion. “Another life,” she whispered. “Another world.”
And … Poof!
The potion worked. She instantly traveled to another world, where she found herself lying in a bathtub in a dirty tiled room. A man hovered over her, cursing and sweating.
“I love you, Candy,” he said.
She looked down at her body, which was shades of red and white and not quite complete. She wasn’t really a person yet. He was building her. Out of candy canes. She tried to move, but nothing happened. She tried to speak, but her lips were too sticky.
For weeks, she lived in a body made of candy canes. It was a strange life. She sat on a couch and looked at people acting out plays on something called a TV. Meanwhile, the man nibbled on her arms and legs. After a while, so too did his wife. Luckily, it only hurt a little, but Sigrid worried what would happen if they ate all of her.
Before long, she was nothing more than a head, and that’s when her lips finally came unstuck. She was able to speak, or to try to speak.
“Gur Ferm Griggid,” she said, though what she was trying to say was I am Sigrid. She hoped that if they understood she was an actual person, then maybe they’d help her out.
She said it over and over again, but it was of no use. They didn’t understand. They simply argued with each other as saliva melted away what was left of Sigrid’s candy cane face.
When she was nothing but a puddle, something happened.
Poof!
* * *
She was in another world, another body. Not home. A weird place. A place full of tubes. They looked like tentacles from sea creatures, and they were everywhere. An ocean of tubes, a landscape of tubes. Everywhere!
Again, Sigrid couldn’t move. Or, to be more specific, she couldn’t control her movements. Because this time she was in the body of a newborn baby. This time, when she tried to speak, only cries came out of her mouth.
She flailed and wailed upon the slippery surface of the tubes until a young girl spotted her. “Oh, you poor thing,” the girl said. “Who are you?”
Sigrid tried to say I am Sigrid, but only cries emerged.
“Oh, you poor thing,” the girl said again. “My name is Harriet, and while I’d love to take you with me, you�
��ll be safer back in civilization.” Then Harriet ripped open one of the tubes and slipped the baby Sigrid inside.
“Good luck and Godspeed,” Harriet said.
Air blew through the tube and whoosh, Sigrid was transported all the way to a bedroom. She landed on a bed.
In the corner of the room, a girl was talking into the ends of other tubes. “Hello,” she kept saying. “It’s Georgie. Talk to me, people. Talk to me.”
She didn’t even notice the baby on her bed. Sigrid cried, but Georgie didn’t turn around. She was too occupied with talking into the tubes. After a while, Sigrid felt thirsty. And then tired. And then …
Poof!
* * *
She entered another world, another life. Now she was a creature with six knuckles on her hands and five eyeballs, and she lived on another planet. In other words, she was an alien. Only this wasn’t to be a brief visit. For many years she lived here, so long that she eventually accepted it as her permanent home.
When it rained on her planet, which was pretty much every day, it caused all the aliens, including Sigrid, to be angry. So angry, in fact, that they eventually decided to invade another planet, which was the source of all their anger. Clouds from the other planet had invaded their atmosphere and had rained negativity all over them.
Sigrid joined the mission to the other planet, which was treacherous indeed. They sent a fleet of spacecrafts, but only one made it the entire way. Luckily, it was the most important one. It was the one piloted by Sigrid and it contained a bomb that could destroy an entire solar system.
Sigrid landed her spacecraft in an overgrown field next to a house. Before they detonated the bomb, she and her copilot went inside the house to confirm that they had the right planet. They weren’t sure what they were looking for, but in a bedroom, in a drawer, Sigrid found a strange object. Shiny. Metal. With a handle and a round tip. It appeared to be a weapon.
And on the bed, in the room, Sigrid discovered a skeleton.
Sigrid had lived for years in that alien body, with that alien mind and that alien language. So long, in fact, that she had almost forgotten who she really was. But not entirely.
For in that skeleton, she recognized the form of a human. Sigrid was a human. Deep down. Back in her original body, at least. And in that moment, in her alien body, she realized what was about to happen. She had come to her home planet, full of humans, and she had come to destroy it.
Instinctually, she lifted the weapon in her hand and pointed it at her copilot.
Bam!
Her copilot fell to the ground.
She screamed in triumph, “I am Sigrid!” but it must have sounded like nonsense to any human because she screamed it in her alien language.
Then she turned the weapon on herself and …
Poof!
* * *
She was now in the body of a joke. How can a joke have a body, you ask? All good jokes have a soul, and every soul needs a body in which to live, do they not?
They don’t? Okay, can you suspend disbelief for a moment, at least? Thanks.
So yes, Sigrid was in the body of a joke. A dark and disturbing joke, in case you hadn’t already guessed. It was a shameful existence, even though she was actually quite funny. She set about to change herself and embarked on a regimen of self-improvement.
It appeared to work, for all of a sudden, one random day, she became a respectable joke, a good old-fashioned knock-knock joke. She thought it was because of all the toil and sweat she had put into becoming respectable. But it was something else entirely. It was because of Opposite Day.
Stupid Opposite Day!
It made her respectable, but it stole her punch line. Without a punch line, she was nothing. She climbed onto the roof of a tavern and tried to shout I am Sigrid into the wind, but the words made no sense because she made no sense.
So she jumped off.
Poof!
* * *
She was a bird. A baby bird. In a nest in a tree. Waiting for her mother. She strained her neck to look out over the edge of the nest, and she fell.
She landed on the pavement right in front of a jogger. A woman named Justine Barlow.
Poof!
* * *
She was another baby bird. In another nest in another tree. Also waiting. Also straining. Also falling. Landing right in front of a jogger. You guessed it. Justine Barlow again.
Poof!
Poof!
Poof!
* * *
On and on this went. Sigrid kept on changing into baby birds and kept on ending up at the feet of this Justine Barlow person. Why? She didn’t have a clue. She only knew that this was definitely not a preferable existence to life in the onyx tower.
I am Sigrid, I am Sigrid, I am Sigrid, she kept trying to say, but she couldn’t because she kept on ending up in the body of baby birds. And baby birds can’t talk. Especially dead ones. She seemed doomed to life caught in a perpetual loop.
Until …
After thousands of poofs and thousands of baby birds, she emerged in the body of a hummingbird, buried beneath a pile of avian corpses.
Things had come full circle, in a weird way.
Sigrid the hummingbird dug herself out of the pile and hovered in front of Justine Barlow’s face. She recognized the pain and confusion in Justine’s eyes.
“What does it all mean?” Justine asked.
It was a question Sigrid had been asking herself constantly. Finally, she had the answer. Sigrid realized that the only place she belonged was home, in the onyx tower. The fortune she had in life was a fortune she needed to share. That’s what it all meant. Be good. Be kind. Do whatever you can to help people. Be the best you that you can be.
Simple. Obvious. But true.
She hovered in front of Justine, telling herself, I am Sigrid, I am Sigrid, I am Sigrid …
Until she ran out of energy and she crashed to the ground.
Poof!
* * *
This time she was finally home. She was Princess Sigrid again. The dose had only been a drop, but she had lived numerous lives that stretched out over hundreds of years. Back home in the onyx tower, not a second had passed since she had tried the Dorgon’s potion.
It had been a harrowing and horrible experience, one she wasn’t sure she wanted to repeat. So she hid the potion away in a hollowed-out book in her room and she vowed to make the best of her first life, her real life, her solid life. She didn’t need to be someone else. She needed to use her power to make the world a better place.
From that moment on, she was kind and she was generous. Her resolution was to help people as much as she could.
Until one day, her parents decided she was being too kind and too generous and, without realizing it, they set into action a course of events that would rob their daughter of both her memory and her soul.
WEDNESDAY, 12/27/1989
MORNING
I gave you “Worlds Collide” because I can’t give you Alistair’s story yet, Stella. I hope you understand. Back when Alistair told me the story of Una and Banar, I knew it was just the tip of the Aquavania iceberg, but I had no idea how small a tip it was. I’d need to write an entire book to tell you what he told me last night. He did more than fill in the blanks. It was … epic.
Highlights? Will that be good enough for now, Stella?
We’ll call Alistair’s story The Whisper, and all I can say is that when he first went to Aquavania, he traveled among many worlds. From a land full of cavemen to an underground lair where an armor-clad boy named Hadrian commanded a battalion of tentacles. From a realm of ice, polar bears, and a penguin, to a space station full of monsters. From a school full of idiots, to … well, on and on and on, until he came to Thessaly. Only it wasn’t the real Thessaly. It was a twisted version of our home, and he lived there for many years.
Charlie was in Aquavania. Fiona had been there too, once upon a time, until Charlie stuck a pen in her ear, sucked her soul into the pen, and poured her soul over his
head like ink. Then Alistair did the same thing to Charlie. That’s how he became the Riverman. Or, as he is sometimes known, the Whisper.
Um. Whoa?
Of course, Alistair filling in the blanks of his story inspired me to fill in the blanks of my stories. Which is why I gave you “Worlds Collide” instead. I wrote it in a whirlwind late last night, channeling that Aquavania magic, using Alistair’s experiences to inspire Sigrid’s. Like Alistair, Sigrid would travel from world to world. Like Alistair, she would confront skewed versions of reality. Like Alistair, she would struggle to know who she was. And like Alistair, she’d return home at the end as a new version of herself.
While I wrote, I thought about all the wild things Alistair said he saw in Aquavania and I realized that the coincidences between his journey and my various stories are so many that I can’t even begin to mention them all.
Birds. Tubes. Towers. Clouds. Candy. Monsters. Schools. Stars. Oceans. And on and on and on.
Alistair says I get my inspiration from Aquavania, but it’s almost as if the opposite has happened, as if Alistair has gotten his inspiration from me. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’d been reading my …
Son. Of. A. Cricket!
THURSDAY, 12/28/1989
AFTERNOON
Mandy met me at Hanlon Park this morning because I asked her to, because it felt like she was maybe the only person that I could talk to. You’re great and all, Stella, but sometimes a girl needs friends who aren’t made of wood pulp.
Next to the snowbanks by the basketball courts, we hugged for the first time in what felt like forever and I handed her a plastic bag with her brothers’ walkie-talkies in it.
“Merry Christmas,” I said.
“Keep ’em,” she said. “Chad and Dan don’t even know they’re gone.”
She tried to hand them back, but I scuttled over the icy snow to the swings, sat down on one, and rocked back and forth a bit. “I don’t need them anymore,” I told her. “Dorian Loomis left. And it’s my brother who I should really be afraid of.”
The Storyteller Page 18
