by Obert Skye
Out in the Veil Sea Leven could faintly see the outline of some of the other islands. They were too far away to swim to.
“So I guess we’re stuck here?” Clover asked, clinging to Leven’s right shoulder.
“I’m not,” Leven said. “If this is Lith, then the Want should be here. Geth thought I should see him, so it must be fate that I’m standing here right now.”
“Geth would be proud,” Clover smiled.
“We just need to find a way up,” Leven said, looking to the sky.
“Now, I’m not certain,” Clover suggested. “But what good is a waterflight if there isn’t some kind of hidden passage or tunnel behind it?”
Leven looked back toward the thick waterflight that climbed the entire length of one stony wall.
“Sounds like a perfect place to start looking,” he said.
Leven climbed down from the rock and moved across the sand back toward the pool the waterflight was drawing from.
Clover slipped off of Leven’s shoulder and landed on the ground. “Hold on a second,” he insisted.
He put his hand into his void and began feeling around for whatever he was looking for. “Nope . . . I don’t think so . . . possibly . . . nope . . . yes!” Clover smiled, pulling out a large white piece of material.
He shook it open and showed it off. It was a clean white Wonder Wipes T-shirt.
Leven’s mouth dropped open.
“I took it a while ago when Addy brought you those seven shirts home for the new school year.”
“She yelled at me for two straight days when I wasn’t able to find that shirt,” Leven pointed out.
“I was going to put it back,” Clover insisted. “But I figured since you had already been yelled at and all—”
“Thanks,” Leven said, taking the shirt from Clover. He flipped it over and looked at the blank white back, then turned it back around and stared at the Wonder Wipes pattern. It was a simple logo, but in it he could see Addy and the fear she used to work him over with. He could see Terry and smell his foul, sour breath. He could also see the wide, open fields of Burnt Culvert, Oklahoma. His mind played images of all the people who had been unkind to him and those who had just acted as if he didn’t exist.
Now here he was, trying to find a way to save their dreams.
“Weird,” Leven said softly.
“I know,” Clover agreed. “The logo is not that eye-catching. I would have included a lightning bolt, or a couple of kittens. I don’t really care for cats, but I don’t think there is anyone who can look at a kitten and not feel a little lump in . . .”
Leven just stared.
“ . . . I’m just saying the logo doesn’t work for me,” Clover explained.
Leven smiled and rubbed Clover on the head. “Thanks for this,” he said. “I didn’t ever think I’d see another.”
Leven pulled the shirt on. It fit a bit tighter than he expected, but it worked.
Clover looked him up and down critically.
“You know,” Clover finally said. “The whole Wonder Wipes thing really isn’t any cooler here in Foo.”
Leven looked down at his chest. “I think you’re right,” he said.
He took off his shirt and turned it inside out, then put it back on.
“Better?” he asked.
“Much,” Clover grinned. “Plus, when you’re wearing a shirt, it’s so much easier for me to hang on.”
Clover sprang from the ground and grabbed ahold of Leven’s sleeve.
“So, let’s check out this waterflight?” Leven suggested.
Clover smiled again and disappeared.
Leven moved to the edge of the blue water pool. He pushed himself up against the cliff’s wall and stepped cautiously, moving sideways back behind the water. Leven could hear some small fish falling up and laughing with delight.
Foo was an amazing place.
Leven spotted a small opening way back behind the ascending water. He could see steps leading into darkness.
“See,” Clover whispered. “All good waterflights are hiding something.”
Leven slipped all the way behind the flight and up the stone stairs with Clover on his back. Neither was aware that the temperature on the island of Lith had just dropped a good ten degrees. The Want was in a mood.
Chapter Ten
One and One Make One
Dennis was no longer Dennis. He was now as much Sabine as he was the weak-chinned, uninspired, going-nowhere human being he had once been. Dennis was Sabine and Sabine had conquered Dennis. I suppose a person could argue that Dennis was in there somewhere, but his mind no longer belonged to him—the influence and poison of Sabine had completely sunk in and taken over.
The black robe that Dennis had once worn was gone. In its place were the shadowy markings that drifted across Dennis’s skin, painting patterns and symbols. Most of the time the markings were unrecognizable, but every once in a while the blotches would mesh to make it perfectly clear what Dennis was thinking. A day ago Ezra had said something about Dennis being “less sophisticated than a regurgitated bowl of mush.” It was a strong comment that probably should have remained a thought, but Ezra had said it out loud, and it had taken only a couple of seconds for the shadows on Dennis’s skin to group and spell out, “You will perish,” across Dennis’s whole face.
Ezra had been halfway silent ever since.
He had kept his mouth shut when Dennis had ordered him and Tim into the van. He had spoken up only once during the long ride from Berchtesgaden to Munich, and that comment had been directed toward the utter stupidity of things like speed limits and traffic laws. And he had not called Dennis a rotten excuse for an organic pile of poorly put together cells when Dennis had missed their exit and caused them to have to circle back to get where they were going.
No, Ezra had done quite well to hold his tongue.
Now, as he looked out the front window, the streets were alive with traffic. Cars were driving as if they had no concern for pedestrian or parkway—a red car swerved violently, narrowly missing a blue car that had slammed on its brakes to avoid hitting the white van Dennis was driving.
“I can’t take it!” Ezra screamed. “You drive like an old woman. Go around!”
Ezra’s purple hair was whipping in the wind of the car’s heating vent. He couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Go!” Ezra demanded. “If I could, I’d bite off your right foot and use it to press on the gas myself.”
Dennis looked at Ezra with a cold, metallic stare. Black markings moved across Dennis’s face and slipped down the collar of his shirt. He sat upright in his slacks and shirt, the sticker still pasted to his chest and his head shaved. Ezra saw the anger in Dennis and backed off. He had almost been snapped in two by the man before, and he knew there was a line he shouldn’t cross.
“I meant I’d borrow your right foot,” Ezra tried to apologize.
“Of course,” Dennis said calmly. “I’d be happy to lend it to you anytime.”
Dennis kicked his right foot and sent Ezra flying into the front corner of the van, where he got caught tangled in the wires hanging out under the dashboard. Had Ezra not been wearing his thick coat of nail polish, he might very well have been damaged.
“Say thank you,” Dennis ordered.
Ezra said something under his breath, but you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone who thought it sounded like “thank you.”
“I should have left you at the gasthaus,” Dennis said to Ezra. “We have a task to accomplish, and you shouldn’t second-guess me. Understand?”
“No, your vocabulary is too sophisticated for me, Dennis.”
Dennis let the insult slide even though it cut him to the quick. Not so much the part about having an unsophisticated vocabulary, but the part about calling him Dennis. It was just so much less evil-sounding than Sabine. There had been many moments when Sabine wished he had taken over the will of someone named Axel or Rocky.
“Sabine,” Dennis corrected.
Dennis seethed.
Tim sat in the seat behind Dennis, oblivious to it all. His eyes were glazed over and he was staring straight ahead as if trying to read a billboard a mile away. His breathing was slow and his mouth hung open like he was showing a dentist his back teeth. Any outsider might have thought that he didn’t have a thing going on in his head, but if that same outsider could have looked inside, he would have seen Tim’s mind trying to fight off the black influence of Sabine.
Tim knew he should remove the bit of black cloth tied to his right wrist, but he just couldn’t get his own hands to obey him. The tie had begun to seep into Tim’s skin, sending thin, weblike lines crawling up his forearm. He wanted to jump from the van and get as far away from Dennis as possible, but he knew those kinds of decisions were no longer his to make.
He thought about his wife, Wendy. He could barely remember that he loved her. And he wasn’t quite sure if he had one son or two. The only thing he was well aware of was that something was terribly wrong and that things were only going to get worse unless he could do something about it.
“What’s happening?” Tim managed to moan.
“We are going to pick up a piece of uneven street,” Dennis answered, clueless as to what Tim was really asking. “I had to find it because you never did as you were told.”
“Sorry,” Tim said weakly.
“We’ll wait until it’s pitch black outside, and then dig it up,” Dennis explained. “It’s a perfect piece and should fit fate well.”
Dennis pushed on the gas and turned the van down a wide side street. Ezra worked himself up out of the wires and onto the front passenger seat.
“Fit fate well,” Ezra spat. “What a—”
Dennis slammed on the brakes as a green car flew past their windshield and into a brick building on the opposite side of the street.
“Did you see . . .”
Ezra was silenced again, this time by the rattling of the van. It sounded as if every bolt was frantically trying to come undone.
“What’s happening?” Dennis demanded, as if this were all the result of something Ezra had done.
The van began to rattle and move sideways. The windows stretched and warbled.
“Cover your eyes,” Dennis screamed. “The window’s going to blow.”
Even Tim put his hands over his eyes as the windows flexed and then blew outward, spurting glass everywhere. Fine, glittery dust drifted down, covering Ezra as he stood on the passenger seat.
“What in the—”
Ezra’s question was interrupted by two more cars flying past them. The van began to rise up, spinning slowly. People were running through the streets crying and screaming in both German and English. Buildings seemed to be choking, spitting out their windows and doors as heavy winds pushed through their rattling bodies.
The black markings on Dennis’s body swirled and pulsated, crossing his face in flashes and streaks. His dark eyes looked as confused and chaotic as the scene before them. The van dropped back down onto the road, rocking back and forth.
“We should get out of this metal coffin,” Ezra screamed.
“We should,” Tim parroted, wanting desperately to be able to think and act on his own.
“No!” Dennis yelled. “We must get what we came for, and we need this car.”
Ezra jumped up onto the dashboard. His hair was wriggling, the purple strands covered with shiny specks of glass. His green-nail-polished body glistened in the light of the setting sun. Ezra’s single eye caught hold of something worth looking at. He turned to face Dennis, laughing and pointing ahead.
“Looks like you’re going to have to change your plans.”
In the distance a gigantic funnel of dirt and debris at least ten stories high was moving toward them. It looked like a tornado moving from side to side in an awkward, jumpy motion. It had dozens of long, windy arms that were reaching out and grabbing at anything within reach. The arms would lift the objects and push them into the funnel’s big, wide, windy mouth. A couple of moments later those objects would come shooting out of its distorted body blended and unrecognizable.
“It’s a telt,” Dennis whispered in awe.
“Telt,” Tim repeated without understanding.
“I remember,” Dennis said almost to himself. As Sabine, he had used his shadows to bring avalands and telts to life in an effort to find Leven.
The telt picked up a bronze statue of an old horse. The statue had been commissioned by a wealthy German fifty years ago as a tribute to all the horses that had died in German-fought wars.
The statue had sat perfectly still for the last fifty years.
Now it was in the hands of the telt. The telt shoved the bronze horse into its windy face and howled. There was a brief pause and then, like they had been shot from a cannon, large, round chunks of metal blew out of the telt and flew through the air. One chunk took out the front of a church. Another chunk hit the pavement and left a hole big enough for two cars to recklessly drive into. A third chunk rocketed from the belly of the telt and slammed into the back wheel of the van.
Tim flew out of his seat, tumbling backwards. The van spun and rolled twice, coming to rest back on its wheels. Ezra was caught in the visor, while Dennis held onto the steering wheel like it was the last gold brick in the world.
Ezra started laughing. “At last, something’s happening!”
Ezra jumped from the visor and out through the missing windshield. Dennis forced his door open and ran out after him. Tim, not having any thoughts of his own, borrowed one of Dennis’s and followed.
The telt had stopped in the middle of a wide intersection with buildings on all four corners. Its windy presence was clearing the streets of everything that had once rested on them. Four of the telt’s thin arms reached out and pulled up two traffic lights. Electricity shot through the air, lighting the telt from inside out. Anyone looking on could easily see all the objects the telt had swirling around in its belly.
The sign outside a small German Lebensmittel broke free and fell to the ground, the letters breaking loose and flinging in all directions. The L shot down the street directly toward Ezra.
“Here we go, cowards,” Ezra screamed, grabbing hold of the L as it whizzed by.
Ezra pulled the bottom of the letter up and it spun back toward the telt in a large arch. Ezra rode the L right into the side of an abandoned building, where the corner of it stuck into the wood beam. Ezra jumped from his ride and sprang into the blown-out window of the five-story building.
“What’s happening?” Tim yelled, confused.
“Foolish toothpick,” Dennis seethed.
As if to prove Dennis’s point, the building Ezra had disappeared into was now moving. Touched by the power of Foo that Ezra wielded, it had come alive, just like the one Dennis used to work in.
The telt was in front of the building looking the opposite way. The structure took two huge steps, lifting its corners and dragging itself closer as the telt greedily picked up and feasted on everything in front of it.
The building raised its back half, and before the telt knew what was happening, the entire thing tipped and fell directly onto it. A tremendous rumbling noise filled the air as the building completely buried the windy monster.
People in the streets didn’t know whether they should cheer or keep running.
For the record, they should have kept running.
The building settled in a gigantic heap of rubble and dust. A couple of brave onlookers stepped closer. People put their hands to their hearts as if the nightmare were over and they could finally breathe easy.
“Idiots,” Dennis said.
Tim looked at him.
“Dirt won’t stop a telt,” Dennis raged. “Only water.”
Dennis glanced around. He saw a large board that had come loose from a building. He pointed at the board. “Pick that up,” he commanded Tim.
Tim looked at the board and then down at his
own wrist. The small bit of black that had been tied around his arm was now gone, and his entire right arm was covered with black, wriggling webbing.
“Now!” Dennis demanded. “Pick it up.”
Tim stepped over to the long board and picked it up. It was about a foot wide and five feet long. He carried it back to Dennis, who was watching the pile of rubble. Tim stood by his side and focused his own eyes on the building Ezra had brought to life and then destroyed.
Those standing around began to feel safe—some stepping close to the rubble and taking pictures or movies of the destruction. People all through the crowd were moving their arms and opening their mouths, frantically trying to describe what had happened to the others who had seen it happen themselves.
Their happiness was short-lived.
The deceased building released a puff of smoke that shot up directly from the center of the rubble.
People took one step back.
The puff of smoke dissipated, and as it fell, it swirled, picking up dirt and small bits of debris.
People took three steps back.
The largest chunks of building began to tap and jig, dancing like snake handlers hopped up on caffeine from heaven.
People turned and screamed.
The razed building was born again as the telt pulled it up, spinning and gaining speed and strength with each cycle. The wind picked up, blowing people and possessions in all directions. The angry telt soon stood at its full height, the new debris making it almost twice the size it had been earlier.
“Foolish toothpick,” Dennis sneered again. “There is only one way to stop a telt.” He glared hard at Tim. “Hit me!”
Tim looked like someone had just asked him to remove his own head and toss it over.
The telt was scratching at buildings and growing with each swipe.
“Hit me!” Dennis demanded.
Tim picked up the board, his mind not his own any longer. He hefted it into his right hand and turned to get some solid momentum. He moved his hips, pivoted his body, and with one great swing brought the board around and smacked Dennis in the back, right behind his shoulders, as hard as he could. Dennis screamed as thousands of tiny specks of black blasted out of his body and flew into the overhead clouds.
