by Nick Wilford
Wellesbury and Ezmerelda gazed at this extraordinary scene with a mixture of horror and wonder. They didn’t have time to stare for long, as one of the children spotted them and started running over, shouting to his friends. The older ones came at a slower pace. Soon they were surrounded by children squealing with delight at these strangers, pulling at their pure white clothes (which soon started to take on a more earthy hue, like their shoes), and dragging them down the road, imploring them to join in their games.
“Where are you from?”
“Who are you?”
“You look so strange...”
“Hey, guys,” shouted Ezmerelda over the hubbub. They stopped and listened. “We come from another place, but it’s going to take a lot of explaining. Is there an adult we can talk to?”
“My dad’s in the house,” said a boy of about ten.
“Okay, can you take us to him?”
“Yeah. Follow me.”
“Hey, my mum’s alive,” said a slighter younger boy. “And she’s cleverer than your dad.”
“I said first,” said the older boy. “Come on, strangers. Careful of the mud.”
“So that’s what this stuff’s called,” said Wellesbury. They had been practically hauled through it by the gang of kids, so the lower halves of their bodies were completely covered. Trying to walk in it themselves was even more challenging, and Wellesbury feared he would lose his own shoes. No wonder they didn’t bother with them here. “I thought it was dirt.”
“Mud’s the thicker stuff, I think,” said Ezmerelda. “Dirt’s the stuff that’s all over their bodies and faces.”
“Come on!” said the boy, striding ahead easily through the swirling gloop.
“We’re coming as fast as we can,” called Wellesbury.
The boy led them down a rough path, where the mud thinned out slightly, and up to a door that was dangling precariously by one hinge. “Just come in,” he said, smiling and waving at them to hurry up.
A terrible sort of tearing noise came from the direction of the house next door. A little girl – only about five – was doing the fluid-ejecting thing from her mouth, the yellow substance hanging down in thick strings. The two visitors shivered. They didn’t understand the concept of pain and suffering, but something primeval within them triggered waves of sympathy and sadness for this little one and all her friends. Had this place always been like this? Was this what Harmonia had been like before the Reforms?
Ezmerelda had already followed the little boy into the house, but Wellesbury was still looking at the girl next door. She straightened up, turned her head, and gazed at him with a vacant expression. Probably so used to these episodes that they no longer caused her any distress. How long would she have left? Feeling unaccountably embarrassed, he ducked his head to enter the building through the low door frame.
There was dirty yellow stuff on the floor – presumably what Mallinger had referred to as straw – piled here and there in higher mounds, which must have been the beds. Wellesbury could see a number of these scattered about, a few with children in them, moaning; they must have been particularly badly affected by the disease. He winced. In the middle of the room, some sort of red substance flickered and danced, giving off billows of black stuff which swirled around the room overhead. It made his eyes water, and he was already having a hard time fending off tears. Some of the black stuff went out through the front door and a couple of empty windows.
Some of the children were holding their hands up around the red shards. They looked up when the two visitors entered and stared at them with wide eyes. Wellesbury had noticed how skinny everyone was, so their heads appeared to be bigger than the kids at home. There was also a strange... thing which he didn’t recognise at all. It seemed to have four legs, and was lying on its back with them in the air. Thick hair covered its skin in patches, but quite a large area was completely bald. Its large tongue dangled from the side of its mouth, looking dry and parched. He could only assume it was one of these mysterious animals that had existed before the Reforms.
In the few seconds while the two foreigners were taking this all in, the boy walked over to the only adult in the room, who was asleep on a large mound of straw in the back of the room.
“Dad!” said the boy urgently, prodding him.
The man opened his eyes to slits, then sat up, rubbing them with balled fists.
“Hmm? What is it, Hector?”
“There’s people here to see you, Dad,” said Hector, hopping from one foot to the other. “They’ve come from another place.”
“Outside of Fusterbury?” The man got up, stretched, and coughed upon inhaling some of the swirling black cloud up near the ceiling.
“I dunno. They don’t look like anyone I’ve seen before.”
Hector’s father peered through the gloom, then walked towards Wellesbury and Ezmerelda.
“Greetings, and welcome to my home,” he said, holding out his hand. Wellesbury took it; it felt clammy as well as dirty, but he smiled. Ezmerelda shook the man’s hand too, but he couldn’t see her reaction.
“My name is Rottifer. Will you stay for lunch? We have three fresh rats, dead for not more than ten hours.”
“Thank you, that’s very generous,” said Wellesbury. “But what are rats?”
Rottifer raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “You really aren’t from around here, are you? Rats are our staple diet here in Fusterbury. When we can get hold of them. Just wish they’d last a bit longer. I found the body of a wild horse once, out in the country, and it kept us going for a week.”
He should have known there wouldn’t be any food dispensers here. But actually eating real animals? He hadn’t been prepared for that. He was vaguely aware that things like chicken and lamb at home were based on real meat, but the synthesised version had been the reality for so long that the animals themselves felt like legend.
“Well, thank you for your hospitality,” said Ezmerelda, smiling. “We’ll graciously accept. But we really need to talk to you about things happening where... we come from. This may be a long shot, but would you happen to know a boy named Mallinger?”
The man’s face paled so much that it was noticeable under the dirt. “Know him? The entire street’s been searching for him for a week! He just disappeared without a trace. He’s my neighbour’s boy – he lives across the street. Do you know anything about what happened?”
“Mr Rottifer,” said Wellesbury, “Mallinger is alive.” But not well. “He travelled through some kind of portal – we don’t exactly know how – to our country. It’s called Harmonia, by the way. Sounds nice, but really it’s not. What’s yours called?”
“Loretania,” said Rottifer.
“Okay. I like the sound of it. To get back to Mallinger, he came seeking help with his disease, but the authorities there claimed he was a demon and threw him in jail. We managed to use the same portal to come here. We’re hoping we could find out more about this place – to convince our leaders that it’s real, and that they need to help him.”
Rottifer opened his arms wide and embraced both of them with a tight grasp. Wellesbury felt like he couldn’t breathe – he was glad to have brought good news, but relieved when Rottifer released them. “Oh, thank you! We knew he was dying, of course. But I’m glad he’s gone to a place where he’s made friends, even if not everyone was as welcoming as you two. I was petrified he’d wandered off, out in the wild country somewhere – where the wolves could get him. We will all die, and usually sooner rather than later. But to die alone is the worst fate of all.”
“What are wolves?” asked Ezmerelda.
The man laughed heartily again. “You must come from some sort of heaven if there are no wolves. What is this place? You seem strangely undirty – from the waist up, anyway.”
“It’s not heaven, sir, believe me,” said Wellesbury. “We have no disease, and everyone lives to at least one hundred years old.” Rottifer’s mouth dropped open. “But the government deny this place exists, and they
have no way of helping Mallinger. He’s going to die away from his family and friends if we don’t do something fast.”
Rottifer grimaced. “Can you get him back here – the same way he went?”
“There’s no way we can break him out of jail. I managed to get in to talk to him, but then they sent me away to be disciplined. It’s maximum security, and we can’t do anything without the government knowing about it.”
“One moment. What does... ‘maximum security’ mean? And ‘government’? There were other strange words you mentioned earlier, too.”
“Oh.” Wellinger frowned, perplexed at the thought of trying to explain such an ingrained part of his life. “It just means... the people in charge. Who tell us what to do, basically. Everything’s regulated by them in some way – like our studies, even leisure activities. Who’s in charge in your country?”
A tight smile appeared on Rottifer’s face. “Well, no one. I find that a fascinating concept. But we just sort of look after ourselves. Find our own food, raise our children, bury our dead – which happens much more often than I’d like, I have to admit.”
Wellinger’s mind raced at the thought of having so much freedom. But the dying? That wasn’t right. If only there was some way to combine the best parts of both. He shook his head. Time to concentrate on the problem at hand.
“So, about Mallinger. I don’t want to just send him back here, I want him to get better – and I think the government would know how. In our country, they came in with the Reforms, when they made it into what they call ‘the great, pure nation we love today’. We don’t really know anything about what things were like before, except a few old legends that cling on. It’s possible that we had disease just like you, but the government eradicated it to the point where it no longer exists. Maybe they could apply that same... what should I call it... magic, to help Mallinger.” As he talked, he became more and more animated, waving his hands in the air.
“Excuse me,” croaked Rottifer. His face crumpled, and he doubled over and coughed harshly, rubbing his stomach. He spat a single globule of phlegm onto the unspeakable floor before straightening up. “Sorry about that. I’ve been lucky to live to the age I am – a good old thirty-two – but I’ve probably only got a few months left. That’s life, though.”
“No!” came a shrill voice from the ground. They both looked down. Ezmerelda had been co-opted by two younger girls into some sort of game involving small, roughly hewn pieces of wood with different numbers of dots daubed on them, but she had clearly been keeping one ear on the discussion. “That shouldn’t be life. Why do we get to live to over one hundred, and most people here die before they’re sixteen? There’s no justice to that. How did it happen? I don’t just want to save Mallinger. I want to save your entire nation, and I think our leaders know how to do that!” She smiled at her two new friends, who were listening slack-jawed.
Wellesbury folded his arms and gave a small cough himself, although in his case it was a genetically ingrained kneejerk reaction; he didn’t actually have any noxious substances to bring up.
“You said what I was thinking. But I don’t want to give any false hope,” he said, giving Ezmerelda a pointed look. She stuck her tongue out, and he couldn’t help laughing. “You’re right, though – why deny this place exists, when they may have the means to make it better?”
Rottifer was silent for a few moments. “To keep you in a bubble,” he said eventually. “To preserve your perfect world. If everyone who lived in that perfect world knew what things were like here, there would be an outcry. They would want to take your ‘government’ down. Maybe they only had enough of this magic to transform one country, and now it’s all used up.”
“Well, I want an outcry,” said Wellesbury. “I’ve had a feeling something wasn’t right for a long time. Whether the government know about this place or not, I want to shame them. Tell them we’ve been here, and about the people we’ve met. I want to take pictures, make recordings.”
“Already on it,” said Ezmerelda cheerfully, waving her pocket-sized computer pad in the air. “I’ve been taping this whole conversation, when I heard it was getting good.” She tapped the pad and put it back in her pocket.
“Great! Now, for some photos. One of you and your two little pals here would be a good start.” Wellesbury got his own pad out.
“What are those things?” asked Rottifer. Not with any hint of suspicion in his voice, just pure wonder.
“They’re computer pads,” said Ezmerelda. “We can do anything with them. Take pictures, films, contact people, connect to the infraweb... you don’t know what any of those things mean, do you?”
“Err... no.” Rottifer’s brow creased, making the dirt form furrows, and his straggly eyebrows met in the middle.
Wellesbury thought for the first time how very primitive this place was, and how he and his people took technology so much for granted. It was the backbone of their whole lives, from birth. Right down to the food. He looked down at the fire, where three black creatures – what must be the rats – were lying side by side.
“It’s a lot to explain right now,” he said. “Let’s just hurry up, because Mallinger doesn’t have a lot of time. Right, girls, say cheese!” He also wanted to take a few “candid” snaps – especially of kids in the grip of pain from their disease – but hopefully a couple of posed shots with smiles would help convince the authorities that these children could in no way be described as demons, and deserved a chance to live.
“Okay, that’s great. Now one of you, sir, and a few more of your children here?”
Wellesbury took a few more quick shots of the kids playing their various games, then went back out into the damp, muggy air. Even the air at home was bland, he realised. It didn’t feel pleasant here, but in a weird way it made him feel more... alive.
Another couple of children were spewing their guts up, holding onto each others’ shoulders for support. He quickly took a picture, and had to stop from congratulating himself for such an excellent portrait of suffering. After taking another picture of the evil-smelling brown river running down the middle of the street, he stopped another boy.
“Excuse me,” he said. “What is this? Is it water?”
The boy scratched his head. “You’re one of those strange visitors, aren’t you? I heard a bit about what you were saying to my friend’s dad. You come from a place with no dirt. Well, I suppose you could call this water. That’s passed out of people’s bodies, and the other stuff too.”
Wellesbury regarded the river again. So, they didn’t have any way of getting rid of the stuff. He was just so used to it disappearing in the vapouriser, and had never known there was any other way.
“I’ll take a picture of you next to it, is that okay?”
“Yeah!” said the boy. His cheesy grin on the resulting image seemed out of place, but it would still be another good one to show the powers that be.
At the same time, Ezmerelda was taking films of the kids playing in the muck – scooping it with bare hands and building castles – and getting them to explain about their daily lives.
“I think we’re done here,” he said, walking over.
She ended her recording. “Aww, do we really have to go back? I’m starting to really like the place. Hardly any adults, and they’re much nicer than the ones at home.”
“Well, unfortunately, those adults back home are going to be very worried about us. I hope,” he added.
“They’re also going to tan our hides. We’ve not shown up back at school. Can’t we put it off just a little bit longer?” She stuck her bottom lip out, which he couldn’t help finding extremely cute.
“I kind of want to, too. But the longer we put it off, the worse it’ll be. They’ll claim that we were sucked into the Under-Region and send us off to be disinfected, or whatever they call it.” He started to hop from one foot to the other in impatience, but found that the process was hampered by the gripping mud. “And time’s counting down for Mallinger. We need t
o show them the recordings and convince them to help.”
“Look...” But she wasn’t looking at him now. She was staring at the godforsaken ground.
“What is it?”
“You probably don’t want to hear this, but... I think you know it yourself.” A tiny black flying creature landed on the side of her face, and she batted it away. She looked up. “They’re never going to listen to us. They’ll say that we were taken in by the demons... to gain our sympathy, fool us into helping them, so they can invade Harmonia. We’ll be sent away to that place you talked about – for months, probably – and nothing is going to change.”
Wellesbury narrowed his eyes. She’d got him here under false hope, and he felt an idiot for going along with it. “What do you suggest we do, then?”
She stretched out her arms. “Why don’t we stay here? Let’s face it, it’s a lot more fun. Kids can do what they want – there doesn’t seem to be any school, but maybe we could teach them a few things. And there’s something about the feel of the dirt on your skin.” She scratched at her arms, which were filthy from the children touching her, and looked at her blackened fingernails. “It feels good, and... honest. I feel like I’m actually alive for the first time ever. What do you say? Don’t know about you, but there’s no one I’m really going to miss. Not even my parents.” She wrinkled her nose. “Actually, especially not them.”
He looked at her wide-eyed face, a spark of anger flaring in his chest. “What about the kids dying on an hourly basis? Look around you, and really open your eyes! A boy came to our world looking for help. I’m going to do the best I can, or die trying. I’m not giving up on him just to avoid getting punished, or worse. You want to leave things the way they are? You’re no better than those bastards back home... no better than your dad!”
