by Shane Mason
Melaleuca spotted Uncle Bear-Nard first as he stepped out from behind the hedges and faced them walking up past the stone fence.
‘Children, children. Must once to you talk at,’ he said fumbling his words.
They stopped and listened.
‘It’s your Aunt see. She’s just not used to children. It’s a bit much for her. I know you are curious but the rules must be obeyed. Please, you see, she will send you away.’
Lexington thought about this for a second.
‘Perhaps Uncle ─ ’
Uncle Bear-Nard cut her off and with a suddenness unlike him became commanding and firm. ‘Best let your Aunt calm down. Either stay outside and hide or creep up the back stairs and wait in your rooms.’ He sniffed and then in a weak tone said, ‘Please.’
‘I have a question though,’ Lexington said.
Melaleuca saw a definite ripple of panic cross his face.
‘Oh?’
‘All the photos on the wall, the ones with our mothers in. Do you know which is whose mother? I mean they never show our mothers all together.’
‘Oh, oh, oh, I see. Um...um...,’ he said unhinged. ‘I shall have to think about it...old age...plays with the mind.’
With a brisk step he walked toward the Cathedral-Mansion, stopped and turned saying, ‘Hide from your Aunty for the rest of the day, there’s some good children.’
***
The gas lamp flared again, lighting up the stone door and Quixote leapt at it, pretending to kick it open though it did not move. Ari pulled on the door with all his might, and then Quixote tried helping him, and then the girls joined in but the stone door sat still.
‘Something opened it before,’ Melaleuca said. ‘We just have to do whatever it was again.’
‘Retrace your steps,’ Ari said.
‘We just walked down the steps and stood there.’
‘Do it anyway.’
The girls walked back up and walked back down.
‘Is that all?’ Ari said.
‘Oh wait, we fell on the floor here,’ Lexington said, ‘when the earth shook.’
Ari pondered this while Quixote played around with the crinkly edges of the strange circle on the door.
‘The earth shook when Quixote tried to pull something out of the giant’s hand,’ Ari said.
‘Yes,’ Lexington replied. ‘But he pulled it out before and nothing happened.’
‘True.’
Quixote yelped with excitement and said, ‘Look. The edges of the circle are the same as the edges of that thing in the giant’s hand.’
‘Well that just doesn’t make sense,’ Lexington said puzzled.
‘It will,’ Quixote said and tore off up the stairs.
‘Where are you going?’ Melaleuca yelled after him.
‘Back to the statue to get it. I just know that it is the key,’ he said disappearing up the steps.
‘Follow him,’ Melaleuca said.
At the base of the statue Quixote dug like mad. By the time the others arrived, he had it out and had pulled it over onto its side.
‘See crinkly edges.’
Melaleuca inspected it. The crinkled edges stared up at her. Lexington peered at it, casting a harsh eye over it.
‘Crude conclusion. It might work. Do you have a feeling on it, perhaps, Mel?’
‘I feel we shall just try it.’
As they started rolling it through the forest, Lexington spotted lines on the flat surface of the funnel shaped object.
‘Wait, stop, look,’ she said and bent down, pulling the dirt off, revealing an eagle and a cow embossed into it.
‘We’ll try it on the door, then you can analyse it Lex,’ Melaleuca said.
***
It took all four of them to lift it and fit it into the circle on the stone door and even more effort to turn it. As they turned it the door carried on opening until a wide rectangular gap of darkness loomed before them.
The blackness struck Melaleuca as mysterious yet she did not know why.
‘Ari. You lead,’ she said.
He nudged his way forward and hesitated.
‘What?’ Melaleuca said.
Before he could answer Quixote launched himself forward. Expecting this Melaleuca shot her arm out and stopped him.
‘I said Ari first.’
He slunk back and Ari slipped into the darkness, disappearing from sight.
‘Well?’ Melaleuca said.
‘It’s weird.’ His voice sounded far away. ‘It almost feels...like...like what I felt in the forest and by those trees. Seems safe though...come in.’
Melaleuca entered the room and the darkness engulfed her. She felt it straight away, a presence of some sort and she wondered what it could be but nothing came to mind. Lexington’s words about contrasting options played through her mind.
‘We need light,’ Melaleuca said.
Quixote and Lexington shuffled in behind her.
‘What’s in here?’ Lexington asked.
Her voice reverberated around what sounded like a large room.
Quixote turned back toward the door.
‘Hey guys look.’
Light stopped at the door and a perfect line of darkness, like a black carpet, ran from one side of the doorframe to the other side as if a force field held the light back.
‘Cool eh…..Magic or magnetism?’
‘I shall ignore that,’ Lexington said, ‘though once again light is behaving differently.’
Ari whispered, ‘Can you guys feel it? There is something in here.’
‘Ahhh like what?’ Lexington said in a nervous tone.
Despite being able to see the light in the previous room Melaleuca could not see any of the others.
‘It’s okay. We just need to find a light.’
‘I don’t think it will help Mel. This is swallowing darkness,’ Quixote said.
‘What sort of darkness?’ Lexington asked.
‘Swallowing darkness. You know the sort that you find in a black hole where light can’t escape. Thought you’d know that.’
‘Black hole? For that to be true there would have to be a little shrunken star in this room. And I don’t see one.’
‘No one can see a black hole,’ Quixote said in a quiet voice.
‘Cut it out Qui. Everyone move around slowly,’ Ari said. ‘Keep talking to each other. This room feels large.’
‘Good idea Ari,’ Melaleuca said.
Keen not to bump into any objects she scouted around in the darkness, listening to the others scrape their feet on the floor in a cautious walk, chatting nonsense. Seconds later she bumped into a wall and her cousins hit walls as well. The swallowing darkness had deceived them - the room now seemed quite small.
‘Walk toward each other’s voices and see if we find anything,’ Ari said.
Into the middle of the room they headed, aiming for the voice opposite them.
‘Ow,’ Melaleuca cried out. ‘I just smacked my shin on something.’
Ari reached forward in the direction of her voice, groping the darkness trying to feel what she had collided with.
‘Everyone slowly feel in front of you. It feels like a table.’
Four pairs of hands explored the unknown table in the dark.
‘And it’s covered in carpet,’ Lexington said.
Ari stretched his hand out across the brushed feel of the carpet, extending his arm as far as he could and touched another hand.
‘Whose hand is that?’
No one replied.
‘Lexington?’
‘No.’
Melaleuca?’
‘No.’
‘Quixote?’
‘No.’
Ari recoiled, yanking his hand back, and Quixote burst into laughter.
‘Quixote! Damn it.’
He carried on feeling the table and his hand hit a series of small bumps though how many he could not tell.
‘Reach into the middle.’
Lexington’s hand reached th
em next, followed by Melaleuca’s. As soon as Quixote’s hand touched the objects they started to hum. It grew in intensity until it reached a feverish pitch forcing Melaleuca to clasp her hands over her ears. Despite the shrill numbing pitch in the hum she tried to peer through the dark to check her cousins. Just when she thought she could bear it no more, it stopped and an invisible force threw them back.
Like embers in a dying campfire a soft glow spread over the table, beating back the darkness, reminiscent of a curtain being pulled aside to reveal light. Melaleuca stared in amazement and Quixote moved toward the light source first, hovering excited over the table.
‘Look at these.’
Two rows of five plain-looking thin bracelets sat in an angled container on the table. A third row of empty slits sat beneath, where five other bracelets might have once laid. The upper row glowed yellow and the bottom row glowed green, and both colours of light mixed and swirled in the air about them as if the light from the bracelets was alive.
‘No one touch them,’ Melaleuca said.
Like an insect drawn to a purple light, Quixote shouted, ‘I can’t stop myself,’ and grabbed a yellow one.
He held the bracelet aloft as if he had won a medal and stared up at it, basking in the warm yellow soft light. Melaleuca watched expectant, both waiting and awestruck by its beauty. The light changed and something in the bracelet started to swirl and small clouds of mists, like a storm trapped inside, moved and twirled.
Something inside the bracelets called to Ari, not in words or sounds, nor images but from somewhere deeper, somewhere primitive and language-less, somewhere that felt as if it belonged to the very beginning of time itself. He stepped forward, grabbed a bracelet and also felt compelled to hold it up high and soon realized that the bracelet had moved Quixote’s hand upward.
Melaleuca watched in fascination as wisps of swirls leaked out from the bracelets and started to wind their way down Quixote and Ari’s arm, exploring their bodies with wraithlike tendrils. Unable to resist any longer Melaleuca stepped forward to reach for one of the yellow bracelets though as her hand neared it she could sense great hesitancy in Lexington. She stopped in mid motion and said to Lexington, ‘It’s okay Lex. We are supposed to touch them.’
‘How do you know?’
‘How do I know any of the decisions I make are right? I just do.’
She seized one of the yellow bracelets and felt compelled to hold it up high. Wisps grew out of the bracelet and explored her body.
Lexington studied the faraway looks on the faces of the boys. It seemed as if they stared across a whole ocean to witness something grand. Even Melaleuca’s eyes glazed or sharpened though which Lexington could not tell. A faraway look spread across Melaleuca’s face, and she broke her gaze away from whatever the bracelet showed her, and smiling, nodded at Lexington.
Lexington grasped one and felt a surge of energy rip down her arm and course into her chest. Her arm jerked upwards and misty swirls traced a gentle arc down her arm and she felt two invisible hands alight on her head. With a slow and painless motion, they pushed into her skull and pulled left and right, renting open a shaft of light. It seemed to come from within her rather than outside and yet it opened an abyss before her - a vast shaft of wide open emptiness - that all at once filled up with light and darkness. She felt her mind pulled toward it - toward some great unknown destination.
Chapter 12 - Light Swallowed
The Harbinger’s wrist ached and throbbed with pain and his vision blurred. It grew in intensity until he struggled to breathe.
Got to get out of sight.
The cousins had drawn so much attention to themselves that he could ill afford to be seen.
He lurched along the corridor cursing his lack of speed and stumbled into a door, bursting it open. His wrist pulsated in pain and he bit his lip trying to suppress a scream. Disoriented, he fell against the wall and groped frantically for a way through. A panel slid open and he fell through, landing on the dusty floor of a secret passage. He kicked out wildly until his foot smacked a lever, shutting it behind him.
Moments passed and the pain subsided leaving his left wrist numb with no sensation.
Have to conceal that.
He rubbed his wrist trying to bring feeling back into it.
The creature Lexington had chased appeared in the passage, melding through a wall. No bigger than a five-year-old child, a myriad of colours beneath its skin rippled up and down its skinny body, changing colour as it passed over its large bulbous head.
‘Why you hurt?’ Scout said.
‘Not hurt...where are the children?’
‘In the bracelet room.’
Bracelet room? How? How did they find it so quickly?
‘Doesn’t make sense. It never hurt this much when I or their parents found the bracelets.’
Scout caressed the Harbinger’s wrist.
‘Play now...again.’
‘What? Play? No. You know that.’
He got up and started off down the passageway.
‘At least now I don’t have to worry about how to get them to find the bracelets.’
The incandescent light from the bracelet room glowed bright and shielding his eyes he entered, finding the cousins on the ground, unconscious. They each held a yellow bracelet, and the sweetest smile spread across their faces. Puzzled, he could not recall himself or their parents falling asleep after they discovered the bracelets. One by one he removed the bracelets and returned them to the table. The cousins stirred; the sweet look on their faces becoming troubled.
Too soon, too soon, too soon.
Scout warped out of the wall and stood by the Harbinger.
‘Why worried?’
The Harbinger looked at the innocent face of Scout and spoke knowing he would not understand.
‘They are too young, to tender to begin...supposed to wait until 18...maybe even 20, but not 12.’
‘They seem smart.’
Too soon, too soon, he despaired, and what of their parents? He had still yet to receive word about them.
‘Scout, if I find you had anything to do with them finding these...well.....let’s just say it will be the last straw.’
Scout giggled and shook his head.
Satisfied the cousins would wake up; the Harbinger shambled out of the room and stumbled over a heavy object. He bent down and examined it. A large funnel shaped object lay on the floor with the faint outline of a cow and an eagle on it.
‘Get it out of here.’
Scout lifted it up as if it were as light as a feather and left.
***
The cousins found themselves again in the same dreamscape they had been in before - a white unending desert where the sky and ground blended. Once again they were naked and the same figure appeared still dragging the black density behind him.
‘Who is he?’ Melaleuca said and wondered if she could get a feeling off him.
Lexington opened her eyes wider, and Ari and Quixote started to walk toward him though hesitated.
‘Are we dreaming again?’ Ari said.
‘I think this is real,’ Melaleuca said with a suspicious tone.
‘I know. The bracelets are a door to another world,’ Quixote said.
Lexington grabbed her belly flesh and squeezed it hard and yelped.
‘Yes. We’re actually here. Where ever here is?’
Quixote shot a cheeky grin at her and she pulled a face back at him.
‘Anything is possible,’ she said. ‘But it still must operate within proper rules and laws.’
‘Explain this.’
‘Oh…push off.’
The figure got closer and Melaleuca saw that he dragged behind him a large pitch-black area almost half the size of the white desert they stood in. Hints of dark, of deep navy-blue, and of lighter shades of black showed something existed in it.
The figure walked past them.
‘Excuse me,’ Lexington said. ‘Exactly where are we?’
The ma
n jumped, nearly letting go of the blackness. ‘What! You lot again. Bit early.’
He looked young though eyed them with caution as if an old man with poor eyesight.
‘Why are you here again?’ His voice sounded old – ancient even.
‘Tell us where we are,’ Melaleuca said.
He scowled at her.
‘You should not be here.’ He darted his eyes around the cousins, lifted his hand, scratched his head and with an absent-minded air, ogled them. ‘Well. Not yet anyway. Way, way, way too early. Terribly, terribly too early.’
‘So where are we then, if we are not supposed to be here,’ Lexington said.
He approached them and inspected them, smiled and preened as if a proud parent.
‘Very nice. Impressive. You are getting smarter even though the world is getting dumber. I never thought you could make it here this quick.’
‘Look,’ Melaleuca said. ‘Look me in my eyes.’
Quixote leapt into the darkness and disappeared, and the man, ignoring Melaleuca, reached in – his arm consumed by the darkness.
‘Swallowing darkness,’ Lexington said.
He fished around and then yanked hard, pulling Quixote out of it.
‘Not yet little one, not yet.’
‘Please. Tell us what this place is,’ Lexington asked. ‘So much has transpired, it’s confusing.’
The man looked thoughtful and then shook his head, and his face darkened, grave thoughts troubling him. Melaleuca moved around to try and view his eyes.
‘Tell us. What is the meaning of this dream?’
‘Dream? Not a dream, lest not in the ordinary sense of it being a dream.’
‘Are we dead then?’
The man laughed.
‘You have just shifted to the left or right, I forget which. Ummm…in your language I think you call it another dimension. And that is all I will and can say.’
Quixote leered at Lexington as if to say, “I told you so.”
Ari bent down and grabbed a handful of sand.
‘Is this where the Ethmare comes from?’
