by Abby Smith
“Whoa.” I set the bucket upright and tried to lean the broom against the wall, but the one next to it started sliding over. I had to steady them both again twice before they stayed straight.
I wiped my hands on my jeans, folded my arms, and shifted my weight awkwardly. Bob and Vala grinned at each other. I wondered if Vala thought that beet red was my normal skin color.
Bob poured coffee into the lid of the thermos, which doubled as a cup. “Vala was just telling me how brave you are,” he said, as he placed the thermos carefully on a low shelf in front of him.
“Brave?” I asked. That couldn’t be right.
“You are very brave,” Vala said. “Ask Bob. He’s one of the bravest people I know.”
Bob? Shy, mousy Bob? Somehow he was the last person I expected Vala to laud for his bravery. I suddenly felt whatever energy I had left washed out of me. I picked up the bucket I had knocked over just moments before, flipped it over, sat down on top of it, and put my face in my hands.
“I’m not brave Bob,” I said. “I’m terrified. I’ve been terrified all morning and I don’t know what to do.”
Bob glanced over at Vala, who nodded at him once.
“You know, Allie,” Bob said as he set his coffee down on the shelf next to the thermos, “I’m not like Mrs. Widgit and Professor Theopolous. I don’t come from the higher worlds or even a forbidden world.” He picked up his sewing and gave the needle a gentle tug. “I’m from a shadow world.”
“A shadow world?” I was confused. “But… but you’re good!”
Bob paused and regarded the wall in front of him. “Do you think so? There was a time when I wasn’t sure.” He returned his attention to his sewing, pushing and pulling the needle through the fabric of the costume.
I wasn’t sure what I should say. Vala had closed his eyes.
“Where I come from, there are a lot of beings like the ones you encountered in the void and a lot of people who are far, far worse than Mr. Cutter. For someone like, well, like us Allie, living there is almost unbearable. There is so much fear and despair and an overwhelming feeling that you can never get out.” He pressed his lips together into a thin line.
“How did you get out?”
“By some miracle—” He stopped sewing, shook his head, and laughed. “I found a book.”
“A book?”
“A book that talked about the Guardians. Honestly, I’m not sure how it even got there. There weren’t a lot of books on my world, but I found it, and read it. Everyone told me it was just a fantasy, that the Guardians weren’t real, but I believed it with all my heart, and, every night, I begged the Guardians to save me, to get me off that world.”
“I thought the Guardians don’t go to the shadow worlds anymore.”
“There are no Gateways to the higher worlds on the shadow worlds, but the Guardians will go anywhere in the universe if we’re needed. Some of us are specifically designed for that purpose.” Vala opened his eyes.
“For years I begged the Guardians to help me,” Bob said, “but nothing ever changed. I wanted to give up hope so many times, but I guess, even in the darkest times, something in me always believed that the Guardians must be real. I had to believe that there was more to the universe than the darkness and misery I saw in front of me every day.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, there aren’t any Gateways to the higher worlds on the shadow worlds, but the Guardian Gateways, as you know, aren’t bound by anything except the will of the Guardian. One night, Vala appeared to me in a dream and gave me the keys I needed to find his Gateway. But it was only after I passed a series of trials, which I imagine are similar to what you’re going through now, that he finally pulled me through. The sslorcs fought me every step of the way and were furious when I finally made it out. Once I did, Vala brought me here to your Aunt May, and I’ve worked for the two of them ever since.”
He stopped sewing again. “So I understand a little bit about what you’re feeling right now.”
“But how did you do it? I mean, obviously you are brave if you stood up to the sslorcs all on your own. Why weren’t you afraid?”
“I was afraid. I think what Vala is trying to tell you is that being brave doesn’t mean you’re not afraid to do something. Being brave means you’re terrified, but you do it anyway.”
Vala was watching me with a serious expression. I was suddenly acutely aware of how I had been judging Bob in my mind—thinking he was weird and quiet and that there wasn’t much more to him, when in truth he had been through more and survived more than I ever had. I was also starting to suspect that this entire conversation had been ‘facilitated’ by Mrs. Widgit.
“So Aunt May knew you were from a shadow world?”
“She did. She never said anything, but I must admit I had my suspicions over the years about how that book found its way to my dimension.”
“May had some interesting ideas; there is no doubt about that,” Vala said.
Bob sighed, knotted his thread, and clipped the needle free with a small pair of scissors that had been resting on the shelf next to him. He put them on the shelf and picked up his coffee cup.
“Well, I think that about does it. Shall I get the alpacas ready?”
“Yes. Better get started before it gets too late.” Vala straightened himself up. “Allie, I’ll help Bob down here for a few more minutes. You should take Pettikin up to the cottage. Your father is waiting for you.”
When we got back to the cottage, Dad was in the kitchen, already wearing his suit for church. I had completely forgotten it was Sunday. I stopped just past the doorway as I entered the kitchen from the front hallway. Andie and Mrs. Widgit were finishing a batch of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. My stomach growled, and I thought about the eggs I hadn’t finished earlier.
“There you are, Al,” Dad said when he saw me. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine,” I lied.
“Well, assuming you’re lying, I wanted to give you some good news, specifically that things should go a little smoother from our end today, since I can almost guarantee that Mr. Cutter won’t be a problem this morning.”
“How can you do that?”
Dad put an arm around my shoulders. “It’s communion Sunday, my heathen daughter, and Mr. Cutter is a Deacon so he will be busy for quite some time after the service.” He kissed the top of my head.
“Oh! That’s pretty good actually.”
“It is indeed, and I hope that you,” Dad said pointedly to Andie as she walked past with a tray of cookies, “are paying attention to this triumphant moment of teaching through example, my young ally friend.”
Andie slid the cookies off the baking sheet onto a wire rack on the counter to cool. “All I could come up with was letting the air out of his tires, so, yeah,” she grinned at me. “You’re kind of screwed in the future, Al.”
“I doubt there would be any trouble from this end today anyway.” Professor Theopolous finished his maps and was stacking his books on the kitchen table. “The damage was already done yesterday, and we can only guess what the repercussions of that sslorc getting through the Gateway will be.”
Whatever momentary sense of relief I was feeling disappeared.
“Professor, my old friend,” Dad walked over and clapped him on the back, “I’m starting to understand why Vala fired you.”
A buzzing noise caused Dad, Andie, and I to all reflexively check our pockets for our cell phones, but it was Mrs. Widgit’s pocket that was humming and vibrating and shooting out little puffs of steam. Pettikin sucked in his breath and tightened his grip on my head.
“It’s time, it’s time! Oh, good thing you’ve returned, Allie. We’ve barely had time to finish one batch of cookies—we’ll have to make do with the leftovers from yesterday.”
“As long as we have enough for the knarren…”
Mrs. Widgit wasn’t paying attention to me. “Andie, quickly, help me get these bagged up. Where is Vala? And where is Bob? We
need the alpacas. Bob!”
“Right, then,” Dad said, as Professor Theopolous pushed himself up from the kitchen table. “I have to get to church, but I’ll expect a full report when I get home.” He stopped as he passed me on his way to the front hallway and put his hand on my arm. “Good luck, Al. You’ll be fine.” He gave my arm a gentle squeeze and left.
There was commotion everywhere, but I saw it in slow motion. Mrs. Widgit bustled around the kitchen. I heard her calling out to Professor Theopolous, and the vague, grumpy tones of his reply. Andie frantically bagged cookies while yelling something at Mrs. Widgit, but I couldn’t hear what she said. I felt like I was under water. Movements were slow, sounds were muffled and indistinct. Mrs. Widgit and the Professor pushed their way past me, out of the kitchen, and out the front door. Pettikin said something to me, but I couldn’t make out the words. He was like a weight on my shoulders, holding me under the water. Even my breathing seemed to be in slow motion. I felt the air leaving my lungs in one long exhale, and I was sure I was going to suffocate.
And then Vala was there, standing next to me, arms folded across his chest. He leaned into me, nudging my shoulder with his arm.
“Everything OK?”
The bubble burst, and everything returned to normal. I inhaled deeply. Someone had left the front door open, and we could hear Mrs. Widgit giving orders and the terse replies of the Professor and Bob. An alpaca hummed.
Andie pushed past us clutching two bags of cookies, tossing a harried “Hey” at Vala before hollering, “I’m coming Mrs. Widgit,” and dashing outside.
Vala jerked his head toward the door.
“C’mon”.
He spun on one leg, and walked outside. I followed behind him, Pettikin clutching my braids like reins.
Everyone was walking across the eastern lawn toward the Nexus Gateway. Suzy had her ears pinned back and tugged on the rope Bob was leading her with, as Professor Theopolous tried to stuff a map into her day pack. Sunshine shied away from Mrs. Widgit, who was trying to stuff more cookies into hers.
Andie fell into stride next to me, frazzled.
“It turns out facilitator is just another word for insane taskmaster,” she said.
We stopped in front of the beech trees and watched Vala. He paced in front of the two trees, powerful and calm, pausing occasionally to stare fiercely at something in the sky unseen by the rest of us. I felt like a moth watching a flame, intensely attracted to him and frightened by him at the same time.
And we all know how that ends for the moth, I thought.
An electric current was building inside me. My skin buzzed; my hair stood on end. My throat felt dry, my stomach queasy.
“Don’t worry. I asked some friends of mine to help look after you this time,” Vala said.
“Friends of yours?”
“They were watching you before. They thought you were cute.”
Cute. Not brave, not capable, not really a Gatekeeper. Cute. I guess at least they didn’t dislike me.
“Are you ready?”
No, my brain replied. I didn’t even bother to answer out loud.
He waved his left arm in a giant arc over his head. A shower of gold light and sparks shot up in the air, following the path of his arm, then trickled down and coalesced into a glowing web of light filaments between the two trees. His physical form dissolved into a vortex of swirling golden light which grew into a giant, ghost-like figure as tall as the trees.
Yeah, not really human, I reminded myself.
Guardian Vala turned toward me. My heart pounded and I was afraid I was going to be sick. Was this it? Wasn’t I going to get any further instruction? Some tips on how to avoid the mistakes I made last time?
I didn’t even notice that Bob was beside me, holding the alpacas. He grabbed my hand and closed my fingers around their leads. He held my fist in between both his hands, caught my eyes briefly, then dropped my hand and backed away slowly.
“Good luck, Al, you’ll be fine,” Andie’s voice was strained, her gaze locked on the Gateway as she backed away with Bob.
“Pettikin.”
Pettikin gripped my braids and made a small noise, like air leaking out of a balloon.
“Here we go again.” I took a deep breath, and before I could change my mind, dove headlong through the Gateway.
21
Twelve pairs of glowing white eyes surrounded us. Twelve translucent, pastel, feline forms emerged from the moonless glow of a red, desert world. My less-than twenty-four hour absence had apparently brought the knarren to the brink of starvation. They pressed forward, yowling, pawing at my legs and butting their heads against me.
The alpacas pinned their ears back and pulled on their leads, humming with dismay. Pettikin climbed further up onto my head emitting breathy, pulsated whimpers that threatened to turn into full on shrieking.
“OK, OK, kitties! Give me a chance to get the cookies.”
“Kitties?” Pettikin gurgled.
I was worried I was going to lose my balance between the knarren pushing and the alpacas pulling. I reached for Suzy’s day pack and freed a bag of cookies, selfishly hoping they were the leftovers from yesterday and not the fresh ones. I gripped the bag in my teeth so I could re-zip Suzy’s pack, and then unclipped the alpacas from their leads. They shied and fled toward an outcropping of rocks and cacti a safe distance away from us, honking their displeasure.
Two paws landed between my shoulder blades knocking me forward a half step. I wondered if I was about to become the subject of an Animal Planet two hour special, “Eaten by the Knarren”. I snatched the bag of cookies from my mouth, opened it and doled out cookies to each of the knarren as fast as I could. They trotted off one by one, flinging their cookies in the air, or batting them around on the ground like unfortunate prey before eating them.
I broke the last remaining cookie, handed half to Pettikin and crammed the other half into my mouth. Leftover chocolate chip. I crumpled up the empty bag and shoved it into my back pocket, not wanting to further sully the reputation of Earthlings by littering in a foreign dimension. I dusted my hands off on my jeans and tried to brush Pettikin’s cookie crumbs out of my hair without dislodging him.
Lightning flashed around the jagged peaks of the distant mountain range, which I now knew was our goal. The air was cool and buzzing with electricity, and I felt oddly energized. The fear and anxiety I had been feeling was gone.
“Well that’s strange.”
“I know, I feel it too,” Pettikin said. His whimpering had subsided, and he was sitting calmly on my shoulder again.
“That the fear is gone?”
“Yes, and it is strange. I never thought of emotion as being associated with a dimension before.”
“What do you mean?”
“On Arcorn I don’t usually worry. Only when something exceptional happens, like when your Aunt May was sick. But on your world I worry a lot.”
“What are you saying? That the fear and worry come from Earth somehow? That we wouldn’t feel that way if we were somewhere else?”
“I don’t know. I always thought emotions were specific to us. What if sometimes they are, but not always?”
“Maybe we should ask Vala about it when we get back.”
Pettikin didn’t reply, and then I remembered that if all of this worked out, he wouldn’t be coming back with me. I felt a jab from somewhere inside me.
“Nevermind. Maybe we should just get going,” I said.
“OK.”
The knarren were scattered across the red and gold sand beads, licking their paws and wiping their faces, some making a throaty, growling noise which I hoped was their version of purring. The alpacas hummed at us from their outcropping of rocks. I took what I thought was a normal step toward them but instead sprang forward several yards, almost losing my balance. I had forgotten about this part. I waved my arms until I got my bearings, then closed the rest of the distance in a single determined step.
Taos hummed.
&
nbsp; “He says this is the last time he will show you through this dimension. After this you’ll have to do it on your own.”
Another stab from somewhere in my soul. Why was everyone talking about leaving me just when I was getting comfortable with all of this?
“Fine, let’s just go.”
The knarren stood up and turned toward me, forming ranks.
“You’re coming with us, kitties?”
The knarren were silent, but the one in the front of the formation, a translucent orange cat with yellow stripes, circles and triangles on his back blinked his glowing white eyes.
Taos hummed and bounded away, Suzy and Sunshine following after him. I gripped Pettikin’s legs to keep him steady against my shoulder and set off at an easy jog, flying across the slippery gel sand beads. I tried to pay attention to the surroundings so I would know which way to go if I ever had to do this on my own, but the dessert terrain seemed both too uniform in terms of components—sand, rocks, cacti—and too random in terms of their placement for me to distinguish any meaningful landmarks. Our overall direction was toward a low depression in the mountain range, which I supposed was the valley where we had encountered the warriors before.
We ran for a long while without talking, and I could feel the energy of the dimension building up in my body. Gradually the desert sand gave way to the rocky outcroppings that marked the foothills of the mountains, and I recognized the semi-circle of tall stones where we camped before. Once again Taos stopped and indicated that we should rest. I supposed that was something I should remember for the future—not to go past this point without resting.
The knarren emerged from the darkness, glowing white eyes appearing first, then translucent bodies. They arrayed themselves in a semicircle several yards behind us. Were they our protective guard, or just waiting for a tasty snack later?
I retrieved a bag of cookies from Taos’ pack, my head buzzing and my hands shaking. White chocolate macadamia nut, still soft and chewy. I sighed as I chewed, and felt such a feeling of wellbeing that my eyes welled up with tears. I handed out cookies to the knarren, then grabbed a new bag, and Pettikin and I climbed up to the top of the large, flat rock we rested on the last time we were here. We sat and ate without saying anything, gazing at the stars and the looming mountain range in front of us.
