Storyteller

by David Crossman

  “Looks like Partly was right,” Marty Hopkins said reluctantly. These weren’t words that had often occupied the same sentence, and they felt strange in his mouth. “What do you think it is?”

  The question was directed at Carpy who had been studying the object intently. “Don’t know,” said Carpy. “Never seen nothin’ like it.”

  “Been out’ve the water for more’n twenty-four hours now,” Warren observed.

  “Still glowin’ like crazy.”

  If anything, it was glowing even more brightly than when they’d first seen it.

  “How’s it do that, d’you figure?” Gabe wanted to know. “There ain’t no batteries. It shines all night, so it ain’t solar-powered. There ain’t no way to plug it in. I been over it with a magnifyin’ glass.”

  “Still say it’s some kind’ve jellyfish,” Warren asserted. “Feels like one.”

  “Only when it’s wet,” said Carpy, tossing the object across the room to Warren. “Feels more like glass when it dries out.”

  “Like a light bulb,” said Marty. Which is just what it was like. It was the only light in the room, yet they could all see clear as day.

  Conversation ranged about the room.

  “You think there’s more out there?”

  “Partly said there was a whole slew of ’em.”

  “Out in the Deep?”

  “That’s where he said he saw ’em.”

  “I figure they’re worth somethin’.”

  “Worth what? Even the Japanese wouldn’t eat them things.”

  “Not food. Light.”

  This angle took a moment to get a toehold. “Light?”

  “Sure, light. Lookit this room! No electricity. No batteries. No power. But look at this light.”

  “Warren’s right,” said Pursy as the implications began to sink in. “What if there’s thousands of these things out there, just for the pickin’? We could put GE right outta business!”

  “And we wouldn’t need no license to catch ’em!” said Carpy.

  “And there wouldn’t be no limits,” Pursy added, “long as the State don’t know ’bout it.”

  Booskie had been reserving comment. Now he spoke. “I wouldn’t go rushin’ out to the Deep, if I was you boys. Remember what happened to Partly.”

  “He fell overboard,” said Carpy, voicing the general consensus. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Who says he fell overboard?” said Booskie. He took the pipe from his mouth and pointed it at Carpy. “You see him fall over?”

  “Well, no. ’Course not . . . but . . .”

  “You?” The pipe shook at Marty.

  “No.”

  “You?” The pipe shook at Pursy.

  “Well . . .”

  “No, you didn’t,” said Booskie. “You got no idea what happened to him out there.”

  “You’re just bein’ superstitious,” Marty objected.

  “Am I?” He held up the index finger of his left hand and pinched it between the thumb and index finger of his right. “Partly comes in and tells us he found one’ve them things out in the Deep.” He nodded at the orb, which had made its way to Pursy’s hands. He folded the first finger down and repeated the process with the second. “Then his boat turns up empty . . . in the Deep. That ain’t superstitious. It’s suspicious.”

  “Who said anything about the Deep anyway?” Carpy objected. “Them boys found this one right on the shore. I’ll tell you what we gotta do. We gotta keep this quiet ’fore everyone and his grandmother finds out about it. We gotta fish as many of them things as we can an’ find a market for ’em.”

  Avarice played well to the group, with the exception of Booskie, who remained doubtful. Before long, voting with their feet, the group reconstituted on the shore with Pinkie, whom Gabe had made his sister get out of bed for the purpose, leading the way.

  “Right here,” said Pinkie. He needn’t have said anything. There was another glowing ball in the surf. And beyond that a little way, another. And beyond that, somewhat below the surface, another, and the harder the fishermen looked, the more they saw, stretching out in single file toward the mouth of the harbor.

  Gold prospectors in the Old West worked alone for a reason, because a partner would try to kill them if they struck pay dirt, a plot line without which Hollywood would still be a wasteland populated by coyotes; whether or not the world would be a better place in consequence is open to debate. The principle is universal to humanity, which meant it applied to fishermen. It was one thing to work as a group toward a common goal, but something else entirely when the goal was within reach, especially if that goal was a commodity. And if that commodity might be worth its weight in, well, gold.

  And if that commodity might not be inexhaustible, time was of the essence.

  Casting wary glances at one another, the fishermen began a kind of verbal minuet in which each strove to minimize the importance of the discovery much the way Slim the gold prospector, having discovered “color” and slipped a few nuggets into his saddlebag to take back to the assayer’s office, said in response to Jake when asked what he’d found, “What, me? Oh, nothin’. Just some rocks that bear an uncanny resemblance to Hanoverian heads of state that I thought I’d send the grandchildren back East for their amusement and enlightenment. Christmas is comin’, you know, and educational toys are hard to come by in the Sangre de Christos.” During which statement he was pondering ways to effect his partner’s demise.

  Pursy was first to employ subterfuge. Looking at his watch, he yawned and stretched as if the discovery had not, after all, lived up to his expectations. “Interestin’,” he said. “But I don’t think there’s much market for them things, now I think about it. Ain’t no way to screw ’em into a socket anyway.”

  This was all the lubrication the others needed to grease the wheels of mutual deceit. Carpy yawned, too, in the style so recently patented by his peer. “Pursy’s right. Nothin’ to get excited about. Prob’ly not more’n fifteen or twenty of ’em anyway. Just an oddity. I think I’ll call the Discovery Channel one’ve these days an’ tell ’em about it.”

  “I reckon I’ll e-mail the Department of Marine Fisheries when I get ’round to it,” said Warren. “Them things might keep lobsters awake all night, shinin’ like that. Wouldn’t be good for business.”

  “Right. Right,” said the others. “Don’t want tired lobsters. Can’t have that.”

  So, with similar words of discouragement, the tiny band parted company and, ostensibly, began gravitating toward their trucks, all the while eyeing each other furtively.

  “Night.”

  “Night.”

  “Night.”

  “See you in the mornin’.”

  “Yup, see you in the mornin’.”

  “Looks like it’s gonna be a good day.”

  “Yup. Good day.”

  “Night.”

  “Night.”

  “I’m goin’ straight home to bed, so I can get a good early start.”

  “Yup. Me too. Some ol’ tired.”

  “Yup. Me too. Some ol’ tired. Been a long day.”

  “Yessir. Long day. Too bad nothin’ come’ve this. Oh, live an’ learn. Yessir. I’m goin’ straight home to bed. Can’t wait. I’m some tired.”

  “I’m gonna stick to lobsterin’.” Laugh.

  “Me too.” Laugh. “Stick to what I know best. Lobsterin’s been good.”

  “Yup. Been good. Night.”

  “Night.”

  The extent to which they were willing to dissemble was betrayed by these last statements. It was unheard of for one lobsterman to tell another that business had been anything better than dismal.

  Of course, each of them drove immediately to their sheds and shacks to procure what implements they felt might be necessary for fishing lights from the sea. They would have to improvise, of course, as it would be some time before instruments could be custom-made for the purpose of light harvesting.

  It was thus that, within
an hour, a small armada of skiffs and dinghies were stealthily making their way across the harbor from sundry directions.

  As one after the other of the lobster boats fired up their engines, though—an event which, due to the lack of mufflers, was as impossible to disguise as Armageddon—it was evident that the race was on.

  The trail of lights from the point at which Pinkie and Wally had first discovered them was easily discerned in the inky blackness of the sea. The boats in furious competition hop-scotched hungrily from one to the other of these, scooping them up in nets and buckets and anything else that could be employed for the purpose. There were hundreds of them arranged more or less in a line that undulated through the Reach to the mouth of the bay, and soon the boats glowed like North Sea oil rigs. Each catch made the fishermen greedier for the next. The farther they got from shore, though, the farther they had to probe to snare the luminescent orbs. Soon they were having to lean almost completely out of their boats, tethered to the gunwales by little more than fingernails, thrusting their voracious nets deep into the light-bejeweled waters.

  So consumed were the fishermen by the hunt that it was not until the trail petered out that they found themselves suddenly becalmed, little islands of brilliant, pulsing lights, in the bottomless waters of the Deep.

  Suddenly the lights went out.

  “What happened?” called Marty in shocked disbelief. His voice carried easily through the breathless night.

  Carpy’s voice resounded redundantly from the blinding darkness. “They went out!”

  Further comment, however, was forestalled by the appearance of hundreds, thousands of lights spangling the depths, drifting slowly, tantalizingly toward the surface, bobbing just beyond reach.

  The fishermen took the bait. The frenzy was on.

  The Coast Guard located the little fleet next morning, some with their engines still on, drifting aimlessly about the Deep.

  All were empty.

  Later that day, Booskie watched from the window of the co-op as, one-by-one, the boats were towed back to the harbor. He lit his pipe and belched philosophically. “I told ’em,” he said. “There’s a reason their daddies never fished the Deep.”

  Rat Badger’s “incorporeal essence” had slipped seamlessly through the consciousnesses of the fishermen, and was with Carpy when he went under. He clawed and pulled and kicked his way toward the light, fighting against the terrible force that was trying to pull him down and, just as he broke the surface gasping for breath, awoke to the fact that he was still in the rustic room, in the rustic bed, on the table beside which was a dew-bedecked begonia in a slip-stemmed vase. It was morning, the second day.

  The mirror above him reflected a gnome that was not at home with itself, a gargoyle who wished to be elsewhere, a misshapen Golem of a soul whose thoughts, if judged by the expression on its face, were in conflict. And yet . . . and yet . . . there was something. Some slight rounding of the ears? Some softening of the warts along the jawline? Might the grime under the long, jagged fingernails be a tad less oily? Something had changed, and not for the worse.

  “Good morning, sir,” said Cummings. “Are you rested?”

  Rat was not rested. “Was I asleep?” he asked, forcing the words around the various internal organs occupying his throat.

  “No, sir. But you were . . . away.”

  Rat considered this. “I was a fisherman,” he said. “Lots of fishermen. White fishermen.”

  “Indeed, sir?” said Cummings, who was once again tucking Rat into bed. “You seem to have found the experience . . . exhilarating.”

  Not the terminology Rat would have used. It seemed only seconds ago he’d been a fisherman of Norwegian ancestry drowning off the coast of Maine. The transition back to a trash-talking, plane-wrecked black rap star from Alabama was not a gentle one. His forehead beaded with sweat. He was about to suggest in no uncertain terms that Cummings dig a little deeper into his thesaurus for words to describe his condition when he roused to the fact that the room had changed. It was night.

  “I missed another day?”

  “No, sir. Simply forgot. I shall remember it to you should the opportunity present itself. Frankly, I hadn’t imagined you the type for kilts.”

  “Say again!?”

  “Some other time, sir. It’s getting late.” Cummings cast an appraising eye around the room. The decor was rustic in the extreme: dun-colored walls, blackened in the vicinity of the fireplace with soot. The furnishings consisted of the bed, of course; a wooden table, a couple of chairs, also of wood. A makeshift pine cupboard in the corner held linens, dinnerware, and an assortment of humble family treasures. On the shelf below the cupboard reposed a well-used cast iron pot and pan. Clean white curtains of Belgian lace hung from branch rods above the windows and waved gently at passersby. The home of a peasant. Probably European, Cummings thought. Not distinctive. There were millions like it in underdeveloped nations around the world, meaning those not part of the Empire. But there was something unusual about this particular hovel. Something not evident to the eyes, but palpable to the spirit as a mixture of emotional conditions. Despair? Courage? Resignation? Joy? Odd. He couldn’t put a white-gloved finger on it.

  “I sense you are in for a stretching experience. Is there any way I can be of service before I retire?”

  An unframed mirror hung by a wire from a hook on the wall across from the bed. Rat saw reflected there the gargoyle of his soul, somewhat bigger, or at least more upright, than when he’d first seen it and, as has been elsewhere observed, sporting a shiny new tooth. Still, overall, an unsavory character. Not one likely to engender pride in its owner. A soul even a mother would be hard-pressed to clutch willingly to her bosom in any but the most trying circumstances.

  “Eighteen people drowned on my plane,” Rat said, for the first time recalling the accident that had stranded him on the island. His consciousness began to surrender to the vision.

  “Indeed, sir?” said Cummings. “It is encouraging that you remember. Good night.”

  The butler was gone, but Rat wasn’t alone. There was a woman in the mirror. The bedroom, perfectly reflected around her, faded slowly away revealing a forest of tall trees; pines and firs growing so close together it was impossible to see more than a few yards in any direction. But there was little undergrowth and the ground was softly carpeted with pine sprills and moss, so it wasn’t tough going. Now and then the woman would call out. She didn’t seem alarmed, only very tired.

  As his apperception melded with hers, Rat became aware that she was looking for her son. There was something different about the boy.

  Rat Badger was about to embark upon . . .

  Travels With Tomík.

  The third night

  Tomík had a stupid laugh. And for good reason; he was a stupid boy. Anyone in the village where he was born and lived for seventeen years would have said so, and no one would have disputed it. Even his mother. Who knew better than she how hopelessly retarded her son was? How many times had he run away, leaving her to search the forest, as she was now, and drag him home—more often than not stark naked—bawling the same nameless, wordless song at the top of his lungs? And every time, sure as Sunday, the shutters would fly open, shopkeepers and housewives would cluster in their doorways, and school children would crowd each other at the window for a peek at the entertainment.

  It was a high point of the day in Tessa Hora and had been ever since Tomichya first performed the feat when he was five. The novelty never seemed to wear off. The laughter of the townsfolk was ever as fresh and painful to Marikya, his mother, as it had been that first time, but she had learned to live with it. She couldn’t really blame the villagers; there was little else to do in a town so far from anywhere that even the Germans had left it alone.

  Shortly after the storm troopers invaded Czechoslovakia in ’39, some soldiers had stumbled into the village half drunk and stolen a few chickens. Three years ago. That was Tessa Hora’s war so far. Sometimes you could hear the guns
in the distance, like now. Marikya ignored them. They were nothing to her. Echoes from another world.

  “Tomík!” she called. Her voice was getting hoarse and her throat hurt. Nearly two hours she’d been at it. Stupid he may be, but the boy knew how to hide. “Tomík! It’s going to be dark soon! The werewolves will be coming out!” The threat would have brought the normal children of Tessa Hora running home, but Tomík was not normal. He didn’t know a werewolf from an egg basket. “Come on, Tomík! Please!” she pleaded. “I’m hungry! Aren’t you hungry?” Tomichya was always hungry.

  A burst of delighted, stupid laughter sifted through the trees. It was impossible to tell where it came from. “Tomík! Where are you? You’re going to freeze to death.” His clothes had been discarded with careless abandon all over the forest floor and she’d been picking them up. One sock was still missing. He laughed again, somewhere to her left, but farther away. The sound was eerily absorbed by the mist that had begun to rise from the valley. It was getting dark and Tomík might not be afraid of werewolves but Marikya couldn’t say the same. She’d imbibed tales of werewolves, goblins, and wicked witches at her mother’s breast and though now, at 39, she knew better, she’d never been able to completely exorcise their residue.

  Tomík knew the forest better than anyone, with the possible exception of his father. He’d never been able to hide from him for very long. “Janco,” Marikya sighed in frustration, willing her husband to mind, “this is your job.”

  She knew as she said it she was being unfair. She hated selfishness, most of all when she was guilty of it. Jan was fighting with the Resistance. He’d had no choice. It was either that or be conscripted by the German army. Or worse. The idea had had a brief noble appeal at the time, grand and glorious and selfless. But the reality imposed by that decision, finding herself left with her husband’s chores as well as her own, to say nothing of looking after Tomík—in itself a twenty-four-hour-a-day job—was not grand and glorious. It was tedious and backbreaking, mind-numbing and bone-wearying. She’d aged ten years in the last two, as Vera, the village hairdresser, had observed.