Acquaro

by Trevor R. Fairbanks

  “Where?”

  Hector looked at her and realized just how young Lila was. She was like a child, always asking questions in a search for answers. But maybe the answers would help him.

  He took a deep breath and began the story he had never told anyone ever before.

  “Father would sober up sometimes. When he did it would last for months. I think it was his way of proving that he was stronger than the alcohol, because when he was sober he was AA all the way. A real teetotaler. Finally, he sobered up for a year, a whole year, and he saved up a lot of money. He bought this van and he was so proud of it. He painted the mural on the side himself.”

  “Very creative.”

  Hector nodded. “I helped him. It was fun, you know, mixing the colors and stuff. Apparently, he had been sketching it for years and finally it had come to life. Jimmy helped. June helped. Even mom pitched in. She was happy, even if she didn’t agree with the subject matter. My father was happy. She was happy. For the first time in her life she didn’t have to sleep with a black eye or a split lip.”

  “Sounds nice.”

  “It was. For the first time we were a real family, not just pretending. This van was the reason. So, we decided to take it out for a vacation. My dad took the time off work and we were just going to drive, see what the world had for us. We loaded it up with food and stuff. Then off we went, the entire family, driving off on my father’s insane quest for beauty. But I think the search scared him. We were barely out of the driveway when he started drinking again.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Off the beaten path and into another world entirely.”

  ***

  We lost ourselves. We went so far off the familiar trail that the van was going over rocks and down dirt roads no one had ever seen before. The map was gone. We no longer needed it. I don’t think we wanted it. Onwards we went, every so often the lights flashing across a tree before we could hit it. My mother was, of course, being a total bitch about everything. She whined and cried and talked about divorce. My father didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at her. He just kept his eyes on the road and drank his beer warm from the can.

  We started to run out of gas.

  So, we stopped and got out. There was a well sitting in the center of a small grassy clearing somewhere in the middle of nowhere. For some reason my father was in good spirits.

  “Now this is the life,” he said, cracking open another beer. “Vacation? Hell, I ain’t never going back to work.”

  “We need water,” my mom told him. “The kids are thirsty.”

  “Hell, let them drink beer,” my father replied. That got me excited. I was a young teen-ager. I wanted some beer. “Or let them drink from the well. No more paying for that goddamn bottled water. We’re living off the land now, hon.”

  “Oh, shit,” my mother muttered, and we went over to the well. Only there was something different about this land. I think I could feel it, you know? Down deep, like in my soul. Somehow, I knew people had died here. And the well was the focal point of that, like all those bad sensations emanated from its stony depths. I could feel them. And I wanted a beer.

  But Jimmy and June did need water. They were irritable and had been for the last few miles. We had driven a long way, a lot further than children belonged. So, we dunked the bucket and pulled up enough water to last us a lifetime. While my mom took my brother and sister over to a bush to pee my father pulled me aside. “You want a beer?”

  I nodded. It was a solemn moment. He handed me a can and I cracked it open. We drank while my mother came back with glasses for the water. I watched as Jimmy and June drank from the well. They made faces. “This water is yucky,” June said, crinkling her nose. I could see it in that glass. It looked dark.

  “It’s weird,” Jimmy said. “It tastes like that time I bit my tongue.”

  “It ain’t weird,” my father said, taking the glass from him. Before my brother could protest he had it to his lips and took a long drink. My father belched. “Tastes great, less filling.”

  Around us the forest was melting. Right before my eyes the trees turned to slag and drained off, vanishing into the emerald grass. The moon’s glow was full and glorious, almost as bright as the daytime sun.

  Then there was sudden movement. We looked over only to see a tiny man standing beside the well. He was dressed in glistening polished armor and his face was white, as white as the new moon. Despite the armor he appeared to be fragile, like a little China doll. His hair was soft and blonde, and he had glowing suede eyes of crushed velvet that sparkled like midnight stars.

  “Odd,” he said, and his voice was like the stuff they make songs out of. It was all high notes, like a heavy metal guitar solo, slowed down to form speech. “We don’t get many humans around here.”

  We all looked at him in shock. But he only had eyes for my mother. And she felt it, too.

  She blushed deeply, so deep I could see her red cheeks burning crimson against the moonlight. I had never seen my mother blush before. It was odd. “But I am glad you are here.” He reached out to take my mother’s dainty hand in his own. I thought he was going to kiss it, like they do in the old movies. Instead he just held it and turned to the rest of us. “Welcome to Gurkiel.”

  “Why, I don’t know what to say.” Mother’s blush grew darker. My father just stood there, drinking his beer. I don’t think he cared. I decided that neither did I, so I drank my beer, too. “Where are we?”

  “You are in the forest, dreaming.” The strange creature smiled. “You have been wandering. Now you have been found. This place,” he ran his hands over the air. “It calls out to people like you. People who are special.”

  He looked at me and I felt my spine spin. I wondered where I had seen him before. Not him, but someone like him. Then I knew. It was an elf. A fucking elf like in the story books I read when I was a kid.

  “But it is good that you are here. The summer hunt went well and all Gurkiel is celebrating. You are invited to partake in the festivities. There is ...” he looked at my father and his eyes narrowed, as if he could see right through him. “Alcohol.”

  “That sounds great!” Father beamed, finishing his beer and chucking the can away.

  “But who are you?” my mother asked. It was a pleasant question and I could see it in her eyes. The lust.

  “Lordax, Master of all Elves.” I watched him undress her with his eyes. “Follow me. We already have the bonfire going.”

  They all left, except me. I watched them go. No one noticed that I did not follow. They were all under the spell of that creature, that Lordax. Not me. I was busy watching the forest melt. Besides, the moment they were gone I was going to get myself another can of beer.

  “Why are you alone?” a voice whispered as night fell in total. I turned. It was the voice of a little girl, yet sophisticated, like an adult. It was sultry and innocent at the same time.

  Three women emerged from the remains of the melting wood. Their light skin stood out against the grain of the moon. They were all different colors. One was blue and the other was lime green. The last was a flaming red. They were the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen.

  “What are you?” the red one asked, stepping closer to me. I let her touch me, feeling her hands run all over my body. Even though I was still a virgin I felt a surge of lust, and the strength that came with it. Suddenly I was very proud of my masculinity, or maybe that was just the beer talking.

  “I’m a man,” I told her.

  “A man!” the lime green creature giggled. I wanted to wipe the stupid smile off her face with my cock. “And you are alone here? By the Drowning Well?”

  “I am,” I nodded. The Drowning Well? That didn’t sound good. But I was with three girls and I was drinking beer. They could have called the well anything I didn’t care.

  “He should not be alone,” the blue whispered and I relaxed slightly. “A good thing we are here to keep him company.”

  “I cannot believe it!”
the lime green girl finally figured it out. “A man! An actual man, come to our lonely forest at last!” One of her hands roamed over my jeans, brushing against my suddenly very stiff prick.

  “The wood nymphs need be alone no longer!” Her mouth opened and a tongue the same shade as her skin zipped out, licking the side of my face. I could feel her taste-buds travel through my scraggly teenage beard.

  “You have a name?” the green cooed. I could feel her body close to mine, so close. I was frozen, my entire body a stiff erection.

  “Hector,” I managed to stammer out through a twisted tongue. “My name is Hector.” But Hector did not seem like a good name for this place. It was a child’s name, a boy’s name. In that moment I came up with a new name for myself, a title for my beer drinking hell-raising style. “But you can call me DyerWolf.”

  “We don’t care, just so long as you are not an elf.”

  “Nor a troll.”

  “Nor a goblin.”

  “But a wolf ...”

  “Now that ...”

  “You are beautiful,” and they pressed themselves against me. I could feel tongues touching me and my inhibitions falling away. “Make love to us, human. How do you say it? What is the word humans use?”

  “Fuck.”

  “Yes!” they exploded in tittering laughter. “Fuck us!”

  “But all these clothes,” they said, and their fingers began to tug at my jeans and shirt. “How do you possibly fuck with all these clothes on?”

  “Take them off. Play with us.”

  I was about to. I wanted to get naked, to expose myself completely to everything they had to offer. I wanted to take them into the van and make every fantasy I ever had come true. That was when I met the Quicksilver Stallion.

  Damn him.

  At first it was just a blur at the edge of reality, as if a sliver of moonlight had fallen from the sky. Then it became real, as all fantasies in this forest became real. Screaming and spitting smoke it emerged from the forest like a runaway train. The wood nymphs hissed and stepped away from me as if I had the plague. The horse was amazing, like nothing I had ever seen before. Its flesh was polished silver and it stood taller than me, taller than any man. When it looked at the girls its eyes burned red.

  “You!” the lime green girl said. “No, he is ours! Ours!”

  The horse neighed and charged, scattering them. The girls hissed and took to the shadows. I saw their eyes peering at me, filled with hate. But the horse was there. It tramped the ground with its hooves and looked at me. The red glow in its eyes faded.

  “What are you?” I asked, reaching out to touch it. To my surprise it did not pull away, and beneath my hand its skin was warm, like molten metal.

  The images filled my mind then, in some way I still do not understand. I knew that the Quicksilver Stallion was the protector of all men who dared enter Gurkiel, a magical land. But why me?

  It looked at the painting on the side of the van. The Quicksilver Stallion appreciated my father’s talents as an artist.

  “But what about my family?” I asked.

  The horse nodded, and I knew that we would need to rescue them. And I felt my body being lifted onto the Quicksilver Stallions back. Together we passed through the trees, moving into a small clearing. A bonfire had been lit, and other elves stood around it, dressed in that same beautiful armor.

  My family was around it as well. There was my mother, in the arms of Lordax. Jimmy and June sat on either side of the flames, both smoking long pipes. And from the looks on their faces I could tell that they were stoned. I got down off the Quicksilver Stallion.

  Father had found beauty at last, in the form of two elven maidens. He was naked, watching them dance in the flames. It was mesmerizing. The nymphs giggled as they spied my brother and danced off for the easier prize.

  I could accept no more. I asked the Quicksilver Stallion to take me back to the van. We stood outside in the darkness and I looked at my new friend. “But where will you sleep?”

  It snorted, and I watched it melt, just as the trees had melted before. The silver flesh flowed and compacted, until a tiny metal figure was in the palm of my hand.

  I held it, looking at the tiny totem. It was warm, as if real blood was flowing in its veins. I wrapped my fingers around it, holding it tight, so tight it bit into my flesh and caused me to bleed.

  I opened the door to the van. All I wanted was to sleep this strange night off. If I was lucky, it would all prove to be a dream.

  I was not lucky.

  ***

  How can I explain the dreams? I mean, how does someone explain complete and total madness? There aren’t enough words in the dictionary to describe fucking magic.

  For some reason or another, I’ve always had a safe feeling sleeping in the van. Sometimes I would wake up and my father would be driving, and I loved it.

  I don’t know why. Surely something that is moving cannot be considered a safe place to sleep. All I can say is that the moment my head hit the pillow that night, I fell into a deep relaxing slumber, like nothing I have experienced before or since. In this rat-race world a sleep like that is golden.

  Maybe it was my first beer, or maybe it was the mind shutting down after a long day of confusion. Maybe it was trying to make sense of everything. Or maybe I was just tired. I don’t know. All I know is that the dreams came.

  In those dreams I saw a man. He was standing alone on a green hill. The man was me. And I was a little boy, looking up at him.

  The forest had drained away, leaving damp grass and black trees against the wash. I looked out and the horizon looked back at me with that single solitary gaping blue eye that never blinked. I felt it watching me and it felt good. I reached out with my bare hand and touched the sky. Physically I touched the sky. I could feel it warm beneath my palm, like a living thing. I wondered if we were all connected. And there was music playing, like a hum inside of my body that was spilling out into reality. My dreams were singing.

  The older me looked at me, smiled, and then stepped away. He fell backwards into the shadows and I was gone but I didn’t care. The music was beautiful. Soon I was dancing with the naked sun, my bare feet whispering in the grass. I whistled down the hill, sliding like a happy child. Suddenly I felt so free. I felt unleashed and nothing and no one could hold me back.

  A harsh neigh cut the silence in half, like a silver dart thrown into a cork board. I looked up, wondering what could make a sound like that. It was metallic, like the mating call of honed razor blades.

  The horse was standing on the hill where the old me had been. What the symbolism is, I have no idea. I don’t think there is any.

  It was the Quicksilver Stallion. The sun glinted and winked off its glistening silver skin. It was so bright in hurt my eyes, all shined and polished to perfection. I looked at the beast. The stallion had long platinum hair that literally flowed off its head in glittering waves. It shook its mane and snorted, the strangest horse I had ever seen. And it was here for a reason. It was here to take me back.

  When I finally awoke, feeling like shit with my first hang over, I saw that the horse was still there, sitting in the van. I took it outside and set it on the ground. Immediately it grew back to its full size. The

  silver eyes looked at me. I looked at them. Both of us knew what had to be done. We had to save my family.

  ***

  The Quicksilver Stallion took me into the forest. For all my beautiful dreams, I had suddenly entered a nightmare.

  I climbed off the horse and started to walk. It felt as if some invisible presence was holding my hand, tightly. Maybe it was the old me, I did not know. But it led me deeper into the melted woods.

  Life seemed quieter now. All the strange creatures that inhabited these woods were gone. They had vanished along with the rising sun to hide. I walked gently, slowly, letting my feet stumble over the rough terrain. I heard twigs breaking under my sneakers. I could not escape the fact that I was holding hands with something invisible. I co
uld feel it, and whatever it was it felt solid.

  The presence brought me to a steep rocky hill where there was a cave. Well, not really a cave. It was more of an opening, like a gash between the stones, little else. The hand left me, and I knew that I was where I needed to be.

  I peered inside, squinting my eyes to adjust to the darkness, wondering what could be in here. Warm air rushed out. I entered.

  “Hello?”

  There was no answer.

  Carefully, but still managing to cut myself several times on the rocks, I descended into the slim tunnel. I had to hunch just to make my way through and it was dark. What was there to guide me? Only a sense of right and wrong.

  One hand gently touched the wall, finding cool stone. I heard a giggle echo in the depths, the laughter of a young maiden. It was followed by a hoarse laugh that I instantly recognized.