The Forest Beyond the Earth

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Pop? Wait, what do you mean? She’s in the Other Place?” Lijuan’s eyes widened.

  “Yes.” She dragged the knife around the potato, unfurling a thin spool of skin. “Mother went to the Other Place when I was tiny. I visit her in the shrine, but she doesn’t have those.” Wisp puffed out her flat chest. “She looks like me.”

  Lijuan fidgeted. “Your mother is dead, but you still visit her? Umm. Okay. That’s… wow. She’s not buried?”

  The sense of alarmed disgust radiating from the older girl made Wisp fidget in discomfort. How could someone not understand how much she and Dad loved Mother? “No. She’s in the shrine, watching over us. I bring her flowers sometimes and tell her about what I learned.”

  “Does… she talk back?” Lijuan grimaced.

  Wisp shook her head. “No. She never talks, but that’s good. Dad said she’d only talk if I was a bad girl. So… I guess Mother doesn’t have them because she’s been in the Other Place so long.”

  “Yes… that’s probably right.” The girl shivered. “You poor child.”

  “Am I going to have breasts, or am I going to turn into a Dad when I’m grown up?”

  Lijuan’s eyes widened. “Wow, kid. Didn’t your dad explain this to you?”

  “No.” Wisp shook her head and took a new potato.

  “Well… boys grow up to be men and girls grow up to be women.”

  “Women?” asked Wisp.

  Lijuan stared at the vegetable in her hands. “You know how boys and girls are different?”

  Wisp figured it had to do with the eleventh finger. “Yeah.”

  “Well, the difference between women and men is basically the same.”

  “Oh. So not all kids grow up to be men?”

  “No.” Lijuan chuckled. “They don’t.”

  “Am I going to have chest pillows?”

  Giggling, Lijuan put an arm around her and hugged her. “You are too cute. Yes. Another year or two and you’ll see. But, you’re kinda skinny, so you might not notice for a while longer.”

  Wisp stuck out her tongue.

  She worked her way through the bin of potatoes, and moved on to the long orange plants Lijuan called carrots. Those required a slightly different technique, more scraping the edge than slicing, as they had much thinner skin. By the time it got dark outside, she’d finished peeling both containers’ worth of vegetables. Lijuan led her back to the outside room and set her up at a table with a big glass of water and a plate.

  Wisp looked at the offering, two white puffy things and a pile of greenery. “It smells good. What is it?”

  “Those are dumplings, and that’s vegetables.” Lijuan smiled. “When you are done eating, come back to the kitchen to get your things and I’ll bring you to a room where you can sleep tonight.”

  “Thank you.”

  Wisp attacked her food, famished from most of a day’s walking. Both dumplings contained a meaty filling under a dense bread-like layer as thick as her finger. She huddled over the plate, watching the handful of people remaining in the room, but none of the grownups paid her much attention. She wound up staring at one with ‘breasts,’ now understanding her to be a woman, not a skinny man. Feet swinging back and forth, she devoured the dumplings and veggies, which settled in her stomach to a nice warm fullness.

  Once she finished, she carried the plate into the kitchen and left it on the table. “I’m done.”

  Lijuan looked up from a chair where she’d been wrapping meatballs in dough. “All right. Grab your things.”

  She collected her stuff from the corner and followed the girl out into the main room again, across it, and down a side hallway full of small doors. She stopped at one marked ‘18,’ and stuck a key in the door.

  “When will you let me out?” asked Wisp.

  Lijuan’s head twitched. “Let you out?”

  “You will lock the door once I’m inside, like the Haven, right?”

  “No. I’m going to give you the key.”

  Wisp nodded. “Okay.”

  Lijuan stared at her with an odd expression for a moment before handing her the key. “If you need to use the bathroom, go out the front door, walk around the building to the left, and there’s an outhouse.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  “Good night.” Lijuan smiled and walked off down the hall, muttering, “That poor kid.”

  Wisp shrugged, and stepped past the door into a room about half the size of the Mother Shrine. A narrow bed sat against the left wall with only a single wooden chair for company in the corner. A hole in the back wall formed a window too small even for Wisp to squeeze through.

  “Perfect.”

  She pushed the door closed behind her, locked it, and set the key on the chair seat. This little room reminded her enough of the Haven that she figured she could sleep quite well. Perhaps even better since instead of bars, it had solid walls. Tree Walkers couldn’t force her to give them the key if they couldn’t see her, right?

  Item by item, she stashed her stuff on the ground, removing everything except her shirt and skirt. The pistol, however, she took to bed, keeping it under the pillow for easy reach. Despite the relative sense of safety here, she stared at the ceiling for a while, unable to sleep because her brain got stuck on a quandary.

  Could Tree Walkers follow her out into a dead land that had no trees?

  City of Ghosts

  -23-

  The next morning, Wisp stumbled out of her room and locked the door to protect her stuff for a few minutes. She’d put on the pistol holster, but left her other things in the room. Eyes half-closed, she trudged down the hall to the main room, went outside, and plodded over to a pair of outhouses. One door refused to open, but the other one almost hit her in the face when she reached for the handle.

  “Sorry,” said a man, brushing past her on his way out of the tiny building.

  She yawned while stepping inside. After pulling the door shut, she turned around and pulled her skirt up before sitting―and falling butt first into the hole, jamming to a stop when her arms hit the sides and her calves caught on the front edge. She dangled, armpit-deep in the hole over a pit of ngh. Her foggy brain didn’t even think to scream for almost ten seconds.

  “Ngh!” she yelled, kicking her feet back and forth. She gasped, struggling with her knees mashed against her shoulders.

  She grabbed at the bench, but her fingers couldn’t get a grip on anything. Pushing down with her arms lifted her a little, but not with enough strength to escape the hole.

  “Are you okay?” asked a higher-pitched voice, but too full to belong to a child.

  She tried to push herself out again, but had no leverage. “I’m stuck!”

  A person with thick shoulder-length black hair, dark brown skin, and chest pillows opened the door and stared at her. “Ay Dios!”

  Wisp stopped struggling. Stuck in the outhouse hole, she gazed up at a person she understood to be a woman, who resembled Dad a bit in terms of her complexion and thickness of hair. She held up a hand, offering a shake.

  “Oh, you poor thing!” The woman reached in and took her by the hand. Wisp started to return the shake, but the woman hauled her up and out of the hole. The pistol began to slip from the sheath, but Wisp slapped her left hand over it, holding it in place as the woman dragged her up to stand.

  “Stupid Pedro. I tell him all the time to put the seat down, but he doesn’t! My sister’s son fell in two weeks ago.”

  “Eww…” Wisp shivered in disgust. “Umm. Is he okay?”

  “Aye. We got him out, but he was covered in crap.”

  “Crap?”

  “The nasty stuff.”

  “Poop?” asked Wisp.

  “Same thing.”

  “Oh.” Wisp glanced back at the seat. “I need to let out the bad water.”

  The woman grinned. “Aww.”

  Wisp felt somehow insulted by that smile, but since this person had saved her from taking a bath in ngh, she kept quiet. Before she could go into the
outhouse again, the woman leaned in and folded down a plastic seat ring over the hole.

  “There. Now be careful.”

  “Thank you.”

  After the woman closed the door, Wisp eased herself down―and didn’t fall in.

  When she returned to the building, Zen set a plate of mashed potatoes and chicken on the counter, offering breakfast without asking her to work or trade for them. She hopped up on one of the stools in front of his counter.

  “Thank you!” She grinned at him and attacked the food.

  He asked a bunch of questions about where she came from and about Mother while she ate. Wisp told him of the forest and their cabin, and about how she’d been walking so long she’d lost count of the days. At her explanation that Mother occupied the back room of the cabin in a chair where they’d made a shrine for her, he emitted a strange gurgling noise. When she told him of how she followed Mother’s guidance here, completely confident in the spirit’s protection, he got quiet.

  “I think your Dad has gone to the Other Place, and your mother is already there. Did your parents have brothers or sisters? Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No. It’s only my Dad and me, and Mother. But she’s in the Other Place, so she only watches us.”

  “Wisp, you’re alone now. Your Dad isn’t coming back.”

  “He is!” She pounded her fist on the counter. “I gotta find him. He’s not in the Other Place, or Mother wouldn’t have sent me to find him.”

  “If the marauders took him, there’s not a lot of hope.”

  “I’m gonna find him,” yelled Wisp.

  Zen raised both hands in a placating gesture. “Consider this. Go and look. But when you finally accept that you chase something you cannot catch, return here. You are welcome to stay with my family while you are too young to be alone.”

  She stabbed her fork into the mound of potatoes, and mumbled, “I’m gonna find him.”

  “You should not be so focused that you walk yourself into harm. Your father would not want you to be hurt, even for the sake of his own life. Return here when you are ready, and we will welcome you.”

  He patted her on the arm as another man approached the counter.

  “Morning,” said Zen.

  The new man nodded. “Whatcha’ got’s good?”

  “Potatoes and chicken. Goat steak. Vegetables. Dumplings.”

  The man eyed Wisp. “Same as her.”

  “Coin or trade?” asked Zen.

  Wisp glanced sideways as the man handed over two small metal discs.

  “That ’nuff?”

  Zen nodded. “Yep. Two is good. Have a seat. Food’ll be ready soon.”

  She scarfed down the last of her meal and slid off the stool.

  “You sure about going out there?” asked Zen.

  “Yes. If Mother leads me back here, then I’ll stay. You and Lijuan are nice, and I do not want to be alone.” Her throat tightened, knowing that if Mother brought her here again, it would mean that Dad had gone to the Other Place and she could no longer help him.

  He shook his head. “All right. If you were any younger, I’d not let you run off at all, but I suppose if you’ve made it all the way out here, you’re not exactly helpless.”

  “Thank you for the food and letting me sleep here. If I don’t come back, that means I found Dad.”

  “All right.” He shook his head, grumbling to himself.

  Wisp walked down the hall to her room to collect her things, then returned to Zen to give him the key.

  He sighed. “I hope that mother of yours is really watching out. You ought to think about staying here where it’s safe. Are you sure I cannot convince you to?”

  “I am thinking about it.” She smiled. “But Dad needs me.”

  Lijuan darted out of the kitchen and handed her a bundle. “Here… I packed you some food.”

  “Thank you.” Wisp took it and made the finger-twirl gesture beside her head while grinning. “It’s okay if you think I’m nuts.”

  Zen bit his lip.

  “I will be careful.” She took off the backpack long enough to wedge the wrapped dumplings into the pan, which still had a few blueberries left. “I will ask Mother to bring me back here if she thinks it is best for me.”

  Zen and Lijuan nodded in stunned silence.

  She smiled, waved, and walked across the room to the exit. On the porch, she took the Mother Twig out and let it dangle until the stick stopped spinning. It pointed ahead and right, away from Zen’s cabin, in the same direction distant whorls of sand danced across the scrubland. A mixed sense of relief and sorrow hit her. These people had been nice, if not a little odd, and staying here probably would be a lot safer than running after Dad. But Mother told her he still needed her, and she did not want to be a bad girl.

  She couldn’t simply forget Dad. After all he’d done for her, she had to find him.

  Before leaving, Wisp had filled all four canteens from the well behind Zen’s place. Hours into her trek across scrubland, she held the second one high, head tilted back, letting droplets fall into her gaping mouth.

  Only her trust for Mother kept her going, despite growing concern that she should’ve brought far more water along than she had. Dad knew a lot of things because he was a grownup. Perhaps Zen too knew a lot of things, for not only had he grown up, he had a daughter. That made him a dad.

  She lowered her arm and screwed the cap back on the canteen while smacking her lips. An unpleasant gumminess in her mouth made her want to drink more water. Both canteens on her belt remained full, but despite her thirst, she had to make it last. She put the empty plastic canteen in the backpack and marched onward.

  Soon after the sun climbed to its apex, she reached a road spanning the scrubland. A quick check of the Mother Twig seemed to agree with the direction the road led. She stepped one foot on the paving, screamed, and jumped away, hopping on her other leg.

  “Ow!”

  Luckily, no blisters formed from the brief contact with the hot blacktop. She walked beside the road in the sand, grumbling to herself about Dad ignoring her whenever she asked him about having something to wear on her feet like his boots. Sometimes, he’d say she didn’t need shoes because she didn’t have to go anywhere. Other times he’d claim that he’d make her something as soon as he found material to work with. Yet other times, he’d say not having anything on her feet made it easier for her to wade into streams to catch fish. It didn’t seem likely he ever expected her to walk across the hot sands where no plants or trees existed, but still… he had boots. Why would he keep avoiding making her some shoes? She could run much faster through the forest if she didn’t have to always watch where she stepped.

  That thought slid back and forth in her head for an hour or more. Not having the materials could explain it. His claim he didn’t want to waste materials on something she’d grow out of didn’t sound right anymore. Lijuan’s feet weren’t that much bigger than hers despite a five-year age gap. Surely, he could make something she’d be able to wear for five years. Of course, that girl didn’t have shoes either, but neither did Zen. Maybe they had them, but didn’t wear them inside their cabin? Even Dad seldom wore his boots inside.

  She hated the hot sand, and hated the hotter road even more. Every step farther away from the forest (or Zen’s cabin) increased the doubt weighing on her shoulders. Wisp clamped her eyes closed and balled her hands into fists.

  “No. I trust Mother. I won’t turn around.”

  Eyes downcast, she kept watching the sand to make sure she didn’t step on any bugs like the giant black one she’d seen within half an hour of leaving Zen’s. She had no name for it, having never before encountered anything with big pincers and a tail stinger. Still, that creature had been almost as big as her foot and the tiny wasp she’d stepped on as a small girl hurt so much. Her brain refused to even think about how bad the sting from such a massive insect would be.

  Wisp shaded her eyes with a hand to check the position of the sun every so
often as she walked. Despite following the twig’s direction, she couldn’t shake the thought she had made a mistake going farther into the desert. Upon finding a shaded spot under the wing of a crashed thunderbird, she caved in and opened one of her two remaining canteens, slugging down several huge gulps before forcing herself to stop.

  After resting for a little while, she got up and walked along the length of the old flying machine to the end, then went around it, continuing in the same direction she’d been walking. Less than an hour later, she crested a hill and about fainted at the sight in front of her…

  Skeletal high-rises clawed at the cloudless late-afternoon sky.

  A span of open ground stretched out in front of her, covered in pulverized concrete with scraps of metal poles jutting up here and there. Machine parts of various sizes littered the area, but none of the junk―nor any of the rubble―appeared bigger than a potato.

  Wind howled through the cavernous shells of the old buildings, punctuated with the echoing clatter of falling rocks and shifting metal. Standing in the shadow of such ancient monoliths made her shiver at her smallness, especially since they tilted so much to the side. The great towers looked ready to collapse at any moment.

  “Dad?” she asked, not really expecting an answer. “Dad, are you here?”

  The wind continued to moan. A distant clank preceded the crack of a big rock striking pavement.

  “At least there’s shade…”

  She pulled the rifle off her shoulder and gripped it tight. No sense of spiritual power emanated from the area, so she abandoned her worry about this being the Other Place. She’d always thought of it as something live people couldn’t go to, sitting on top of the normal world, like the other side of a book’s page. All the words on one side existed in the same physical space as the words on the other side, but they would never meet.

  Ahead, the road sat in the shade of the old skyscrapers, still warm but not enough to burn her soles. The nearer to the towers she got, the larger the rubble hunks became. By the time she reached the first building, she crept around huge chunks of stone, some as big as cars. Many had bent bars sticking out of them that reminded her of the Haven, since they had the same thickness and crisscross pattern. She touched a finger to one of the rods and smiled at how much Dad loved her. He had made the Haven for her to keep her safe. Had he come all the way here to find them? And how had he gotten them to stick together into one solid piece of metal?