Sand Glass

by A M Russell

We travelled through rough vegetation, tough bushes and tangles of woody herbs, and spiky grasses. Then the land dipped a little. We stepped over a shallow stream and I saw a faint sparkle ahead. I could not make it out. It was like the dancing reflections of fairy lights but more metallic… or perhaps like the lights cast as a dancer moved, where the shimmering of lamplight made patterns in your eyes.

  I was another ten minutes before I could see what it was. We came to a field that was waist high in flowers. They were silver, and were like large blue bells in shape but about ten times bigger. They looked like the bowls of a wine glasses, with the addition of long flexible stalks that were blood red. They had only one bell to a stalk. They were quite like corn, in that they danced and nodded with the lightest breeze. They grew from a fine turf that had an almost mossy appearance. I was quite taken with their delicacy and the rainbow patterns of little lights that reflected all about. Yet also there was an occasional sprinkle of these tinted with the richest orangey red that seemed to glow like fire in the silver field, who’s stalks tended towards a purply-blue. We crossed this place slowly looking from side to side, and filled with a most joyful sense of delightfulness, as they rocked and nodded at our passing among them. We heard then the bubble of a stream in the midst of this field. We all sat and drank from the stream. As above our heads the bells tossed and were reflected in the glassy waters. The water was fresh, clear and cold and had a mineral taste that invigorated the senses. Jared cupped his hands and splashed water right over his head. Janey was shaking with something as she hid her face from me. She undid the blue cloth and let her hair fall forwards into the water. I ran my hands through my hair, and felt at last awake. A moment later, they were both laughing and smiling at each other. A blessed moment of release.

  After a few minutes, we got to our feet then and stepped over the stream continuing to the end of the field. We turned and looked back for a moment. All I could see was silver into the distance, and then it faded into misty indistinctness. We had crossed back into the land we knew. We turned our backs and began to search for land marks. I wasn’t much use having not travelled this way before. The land here was wooded and seemed as much like an English countryside as any part I had before encountered, apart from the bushes of strange fruit that we intermittently passed. As the sun reached its zenith Jared found a place to rest.

  ‘Do you know this place Janey?’ asked Jared.

  ‘I think so.’ She wrinkled her nose in that way she did when puzzled. She stared at the distance, ‘I think I see the entrance back to Aiden’s place. It will take us until night fall to reach it though.’

  ‘Very well,’ Jared slung down the pack from his shoulders, ‘we’ll take a good rest break, and then reach the path at dusk. Do you think you will be able to walk any further?’ he looked to me.

  ‘Yes. I think so if I rest now.’

  We all sat down. It was then with a shock of realisation I found out the truth. None of us had eaten anything for what seemed like days. We had only drank water or the herb drinks made on the little stove.

  ‘Is anyone hungry?’ I asked.

  ‘Do you want to eat?’ asked Jared.

  ‘No. I just wondered if anyone else felt the same. Isn’t it odd that….’

  ‘Shh!’ Jared said, ‘There is time to talk of this; just not now. Not yet. But in time we will, okay?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘That’s fine.’

  We sat and gazed upwards. I saw fluffy clouds like sheep in a meadow wandering and grazing their way across the duck egg sky. The weather was kind and a little patch of sunlight warmed us as we rested on the grass. We all were very quiet, a companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts for an hour. Janey laid back gazing into the blue. She was very still, and had relinquished an animation of her nature that was driven by anger or fired up determination, or both. She was like a storm cycle run out, or a garden at the end of the party. The silence at the end of the song. That going home time. In the debris of life in teacups and half eaten sausage rolls, my mother often said that there was nothing better than a nice cup of tea after clearing it all away. That time between worlds, and before memory was polluted with a thousand images that our dissolute little lives find such delight in. There was Janey. A serious angel, and Jared who curled round with his eyes closed. His face held a stillness that was usually only seen in fleeting moments. And as he awoke it remained; like a deep pool in a glade, where no voices are heard. He was himself in a way that I might not know again. But there were no questions I wanted to ask, no thoughts I wished to express. He smiled at me for a long moment, while he lay very still, just waking. He rolled over a moment or so later and adjusted the pack straps ready to move again. There was a faint halo of light around him… or was it my imagination. The warm day created a haze on the horizon certainly, that perhaps accounted for the phenomena.

  Before I had finished these musings, Jared made ready for us to be on the way again. It was mid-afternoon to judge by the light; but I was still disorientated from recent events so I just trusted them both to lead us back.

  We started at a slower pace, which I was glad of, as my body was aching and stiff from the morning’s walk. A little while later we then came to a rocky part of the terrain. Here the ground was slightly reddish and for about 500 yards was barren of life. Our route took up an incline. It was slight in elevation, but even so Jared turned round to see how I was doing. I felt light headed but ok in most respects.

  ‘No more being heroic.’ said Jared suddenly. He seemed so much like the person I had known before that it surprised me. I thought about this as I walked in his footsteps with Janey behind. We were all of us complex creatures, capable of who knows what, full of many shades and tints of personality and desire and longing and fear, and all manner of other things. Each one of us, a whole universe of unique patterns, mysterious and extraordinary. I think I was beginning then to have a little real faith. It would seem strange to say that, considering what I had undergone. But nothing can be effective in changing a person unless it works on a sense of proportion that we all carry within like an inner measure. How we set it against our experiences tells us what we really do believe. Something had changed. Was it inevitable? I didn’t believe so. I thought of those who had not seen this land as a beautiful mystery, but an experimental possession. If I loved it best then, I could not love it at all later. The feeling had to build, to grow, and to keep growing beyond the point of its inception. I was given back life. Now I had to dare to begin to live.

  At the going down of the sun, we found the tiny little doorway that let up a winding stair to Aiden’s camp. It was deep inside the bushes; and inside another apparently shallow empty cave that reached no further; that I could have passed it a thousand times and never found the place.

  ‘What shall we do with you?’ Jared seemed to be calculating something.

  ‘I can climb up there,’ I said, ‘It’s not far. I did it before when I was concussed you know.’

  ‘Really?’ said Janey, in almost an echo of her former disposition towards me. I almost expected the next sentence to contain the word “idiot”; and I was ready at least to agree with the sentiment, if not the practical need to say it here.

  But Jared had other ideas. He unclipped the pack and gave it to Janey.

  ‘I will carry you.’ He said. They both looked at me. I was beginning to weaken and feel light headed again. I let Jared lift me on his back. I was amazed then by his strength. How is it possible? I knew he was in hospital, and yet perhaps the spirit without the weight of the body can sometimes be stronger. Or maybe it was that we were all heading for home at last.

  The stair of this climb was step. And Janey led with a torch held aloft. I had not reckoned on the darkness. There were no streaks of illuminated vegetation here. It was a dark staircase with many turns and side alleys. Yet Janey led us upwards without hesitating. After an hour we stopped. Jared was fine. We didn’t need to wait so we continued upwards. I tried to keep myself alert and
not slump too much. But Jared kept saying that it was alright if I wanted to close my eyes. In the darkness of these caves it was easy to be sleepy. The air was fresh enough but the silence and the absence of a breeze eventually overcame my oddly illogical rules, and I drifted into a half dream state.

  I was aware a little later that I was being lowered onto a bed. It could have been the very same that I had been in that time before. Here now there was no limitation on the time I could stay. I had been in Summerland for days now. It seemed unusually quiet. They came in with a tray and bowls. I sat up. Janey and Jared sat on the floor and we had some soup. It was the first meal of any sort we had eaten for a long time.

  ‘There is no one here.’ said Jared.

  ‘What happened to this place?’ I said

  ‘I think we have come back into a place in its history when no one lives here.’ said Janey, ‘the generator could work, but we might attract attention.’

  ‘The tribes down on the plains told me that the people from the mountain had been making forays out; but that they couldn’t stay because they were getting sick.’

  ‘Who else was with you?’ Jared stirred the spoon round, ‘you didn’t come alone.’

  ‘I don’t quite know how to say it.’ I was trying to find a way of explaining to Janey about the other Janey, ‘Marcia, and err…., what do you want me to say?’ I looked at her but she had a switched off look.

  Jared answered me; ‘She already knows. And we need more details on who is still in the whole place and who is likely to have already left.’

  ‘Our first priority is our own people,’ said Janey, ‘I mean our expedition and Aiden’s as well. We might need help in making sure everyone is accounted for.’

  ‘George?’ I asked.

  ‘No.’ Jared said, ‘we are on our own. We will finish our supper and make a list. And tomorrow we will work out a plan. Everything has changed. And we need to make sure that this can be ended. That was always what I was aiming at.’

  ‘There is Elland and his men. I think they’ve been out here years.’ I said.

  ‘If there are reconnaissance trips being made into the Summerland tribes territory, then we can perhaps conclude that they have a lot of time stabilisation drugs stored somewhere in their part of the mountain.’ Jared seemed very thoughtful.

  ‘But how do we get to them?’ Janey started to look a little worried. She put her spoon down.

  ‘We have to get Elland out.’ said Jared. He was the first to get “disappeared” out here. If we can get them enough of Alexander’s drugs, they may be able to help us in return.

  ‘I hope you aren’t advocating violence.’ I said, and then regretted it.

  Jared answered me mildly; ‘Tempting, but no. This is strictly a covert operation. And we aren’t going to get them by going in. They are going to bring them out.’

  ‘How?’ I said

  ‘Easy.’ said Jared, ‘We’ve got something that they cannot resist.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Janey in her best ok-I-give-up voice.

  ‘Us. The renegades to their order. We are the bait and we will let them take us.’

  ‘But what of the other?’ asked Janey at last, as if she was weary of thinking about it.

  ‘That is a question and no doubt about it.’ I said, ‘I can help with that. We just need to get in the lab in here and use the clamp to switch my tag. As I spoke I drew it out.

  ‘Which one is that?’ asked Janey.

  ‘Mine. The one I was issued with. I was given it back.’ I looked at Jared. He seemed startled.

  ‘Yes,’ I continued, ‘she’s here too. It’s the original version of Marcia, your Marcia. She was able to get out and come back, just like me. And she’s got a head full of information, and a sock drawer full of print outs back on the outside. Enough to change something. If not everything.’

  ‘Marcia?’ Jared blinked and turned away from us both. Janey and I looked at each other. ‘Better than having an argument with yourself.’ She said and shrugged.

  ‘Yes. About that.’ I said, ‘what is the next step?’

  ‘I went to see them before left,’ said Janey, ‘the tribe of the plains. I was going to ask them for the tribal mark. But they told me it wasn’t my time. And that I would know when it was my time; and to come back then.’ she continued with a hesitant lightness, ‘I didn’t think I would come back at all. I thought I would expire out there. I believed that she…. Was the one who deserved to live. But now I think it isn’t so simple. I can feel it in my mind. As if I’m dreaming of another place that I’m in. It’s stronger here. As if she’s nearer. As if I’m nearer. As if….. we are nearer to each other.’ She looked at me then closely, gazing silently. Then spoke again: ‘Yes. I was ready to die. But it was just a dream I once had. I’m not. Not yet. Nature has a way of asserting itself. I hadn’t the means…. And the giants ignored me.’ She got up and turned from us both. That was the only time she ever mentioned directly what had happened to her on that shoreline of existence. I did not ask later. And much later she would not seem to remember it at all.

  ‘Come on Jared.’ Janey tried to coax him back to us, hunched as he was by then on one of the other low beds in the room.

  ‘Marcia is here?’ he said as if completely freaked by the notion of it.

  ‘Jared. You like her. She likes you. She remembers everything about you that she’s already discovered.. poor girl.’ Janey glanced at me, ‘Look at me. Jared, I’ve really got a problem. I’m going to have to meet myself. If that isn’t a bit, well weird… then I don’t know what is. Surely you can manage to face just one of her. She is very fond of you, you know.’

  ‘Yeah… I know.’ Jared turned round, ‘that’s just it. She’s “fond” of me.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Janey, ‘well that makes sense. Perhaps I may venture a thought dear brother mine; that you and her might perhaps have been at cross purposes.’

  ‘That sounds terribly Shakespearian.’ I said.

  ‘Yes, well.’ Janey continued, ‘I think that for once you really should listen to me.’

  Jared looked at me, ‘I hope we know what we’re doing.’ Then to Janey: ‘What did she say about me?’

  ‘She said that she was rather upset that you always seem to have to be zooming off on another of your little expeditions.’

  ‘Expeditions?’ I repeated.

  ‘Davey….’ Janey came over to me, ‘What shall we do with you?’

  She shook her head slightly, and then sighed.

  She sat back. The lamp light gleamed in her eyes. It was different now. There was a reason to go back. I found them both together, in this quiet state of mind quite overwhelming. Jared closed his eyes and rested a little more.

  *****

  Ten

  I found the cave equivalent of the washroom, and tried to give myself a proper freshen up, then on tiptoeing back past Jared; I paused, and looked down at him. There was something not quite right about the way he breathed. It was rough. A little as if he was parched and needed a drink. I sat down on the floor near to the bunk wondering what I ought to do. A few feet away Janey was quiet and relaxed in sleep.

  I didn’t want to wake him. But I was worried. I touched his shoulder very lightly.

  ‘Davey…’ his eyes opened, and he focused on me.

  ‘I’m sorry… you seemed to be breathing kind of funny… not quite right. It was stupid of me, really.’

  ‘No… no, it alright.’ He blinked and rubbed his eyes, ‘pass me the water flask will you.’

  ‘How long do you think it will take to finish all this?’ I whispered as I handed him the flask.

  He raised himself on one elbow, and took a long drink before replying; ‘I think it will take no more than ten days,’ he said keeping his voice low, ‘But we need to find out how long we have been out here relative to the time at home. It’s important to find out…..’ he coughed and wheezed.

  ‘What is wrong?’ I took the flask from his hand.

  ‘I think t
hat I must wake up soon…. I was dreaming, just before you touched me. I felt as if I was lying in another place. It had an odd smell. Something was in my mouth. I wanted to take it out…. it felt uncomfortable. Then I thought I saw someone. As if my eyes were just opening. Someone I thought I knew….’

  ‘Who?’ I asked fascinated and horrified by turns.

  ‘I….. Help me Davey. I may be stronger in this place…. But I am weaker in the real place.’ He put his hand on my shoulder, ‘Help me Davey…. Please… I have to last long enough to finish this.’

  ‘Tell me what you mean?’ I was seriously alarmed now, but kept my voice low, so as not to wake Janey.

  ‘We have to find the body…. I mean the one from before…. It would be like wearing a heavier coat. It would slow things down…. And I think it might be the only way that Marcia can see me.’

  ‘But doesn’t what happened change everything?’

  ‘Davey…. I think I must be realistic. I’m hanging on by a thread as it is. Only You and Janey have kept me here. You are both a reason to go back.’

  ‘You were walking down the beach. Where had you come from?’

  ‘Please don’t ask me to tell!’ then he looked away, and spoke in a whisper, ‘I saw something; that if I think about it now would set me running back there without stopping. I must look to you all. I know that Janey won’t admit it. But back there I might not recover. I would take a miracle.…’

  ‘But Jared,’ I tried to sound reassuring, ‘Look what you did for me. You brought me back.’

  ‘Oh Davey! How little you know. That wasn’t me. I am just a whisper of that other voice. I am weak and sick, and a dying man. I cannot deny that as a possibility. You need to know that I am in pain. I want to wake up. But the pain is too much. Even that other body that was left in these caves somewhere will only bring some shadow of relief. It was no coincidence that a head injury took that covering from me.’

  ‘Jared. That is all beyond me. But I will do whatever you want. Just promise me one thing.’