The Orchard of Hope

by Amy Neftzger

  “What did you see?” Moss asked.

  “Nothing,” Nicholas replied.

  “Nothing at all? Or nothing of importance? Because there’s a huge difference.”

  “Nothing of importance.”

  “Good!” Moss exclaimed. It apparently didn’t take much to make the sorcerer happy. “What nothing did you see?”

  “It was a cloud – just a tiny one, the size of a drop. But then it went away, so it didn’t seem to be very much of anything or very important.”

  “Not important?” Moss exclaimed, then repeated. “Not important?” Then he laughed.

  “What was it?”

  “Time,” Moss replied. “You saw a fraction of a moment, but the amount doesn’t matter. It’s what you saw that’s important.”

  “Why is this significant?”

  “Because time is the stuff that life is made of, and life is the basis of reality. You’ve taken your very first little bite of reality. How did it taste?”

  “Not as good as meat, I’ll bet,” Newton replied with mock sarcasm and a smile.

  “I think that it’s only made me hungry for more,” said Nicholas.

  “Good!” Moss said, clapping triumphantly.

  Chapter

  Nine

  The City of Eternal Beauty

  “That was the best illness I’ve had in a while,” Roland sighed with contentment as he slowly got off the ship. “It felt like someone was pulling my intestines up through my throat.”

  “I understand that you enjoy being seasick, but I don’t know why,” said Kelsey.

  “I don’t really enjoy it the way that you’d enjoy a nice piece of cake or a beautiful sunset. I enjoy the novelty of the experience,” he said. “I don’t ever catch colds or viruses, and I never feel pain like the average person. Being seasick is the only way to remind me of what it means to be alive and human. That’s what I love about it. I enjoy the insight it gives me into what a person feels when they pass from life into death. I feel more connected to people when I suffer.”

  “He enjoys being seasick? What did he say?” Maggie asked and Kelsey relayed the conversation. After Kelsey had finished, Maggie continued. “I didn’t think that Death had much compassion. But if he just said what you told me, then he may have more compassion than anyone.”

  “You’re very smart, Maggie,” Kelsey said after she thought for a few moments. “You don’t look at things the same way that I do, but maybe that’s a good thing.”

  “Perhaps we can help each other. That’s what my friends and I did in the orphanage before it became a school. Well, we still help each other, but the place is different now.”

  “What was it like before? How has it changed?” Kelsey asked with interest. “Nicholas has told me a little, but I’d like to know more.”

  Roland smiled but didn’t interrupt the conversation. He led the way towards what appeared to be a city on a hill. It was large and had tall buildings, but all the structures were completely walled in with a small forested area on one side of it. A set of large ornamental brass gates stretched across the road. The gates were open, and there were no guards, so the group passed through with ease. It was still daylight, and according to the wooden sign posted outside, the gates wouldn’t be closed until dusk.

  Entering the city, they saw all kinds of shops. Roland ignored the storefronts as he made his way past them, but Kelsey noticed the elaborate window displays for even the most common items. There was a cutlery shop with a synchronized laser light show on the different knives, making them appear like rock stars on stage. It made Kelsey smile.

  “I’d love to go shopping there,” she said with excitement in her voice.

  “Not me,” Maggie replied. “I’d rather go next door. That place looks really cool.” Kelsey examined the display to see a model town with small, controlled explosions going off intermittently.

  “What are they selling?” Kelsey asked.

  “Combustibles,” Maggie replied. “And stuff to make explosives. It’s sort of a hobby of mine.”

  “Really?” Kelsey asked in surprise. She hadn’t thought of Maggie having a penchant for destruction.

  “Oh, yes, I made things blow up all the time in the orphanage. I even learned how to make different colored flames. It depends upon what kind of metals you pack in with the gun powder. It’s really an art,” Maggie said.

  Kelsey looked at Maggie with a new sense of appreciation. The king was much smarter than she had given him credit for being, she decided. Having a friend who knows about explosives could be very useful.

  As they continued walking down the main road, Kelsey watched a team of workers sanding and polishing a group of tall statues that lined the street. The marble structures had been polished to such a shine that the faces and other features were worn off. It was difficult enough to tell that the figures represented human forms, but it was impossible to tell if these were once male or female. There were indentations where the eyes should have been, but they looked more like shallow dimples. Kelsey could make out a knob in the places where the noses should be and she could see the faint outline of lips. All of the statues looked this way. They were nearly featureless but shining brilliantly from the polishing.

  “There are no faces on these statues,” she whispered. “Are they supposed to have faces?”

  “We’re in the City of Eternal Beauty,” Roland said as he adjusted his hat on his head to ensure it was securely fastened. He tugged on his cravat to pull it up tightly around his chin.

  “The City of Eternal Beauty?” Kelsey asked with confusion in her voice. She quickly glanced around.

  “Those are the ugliest statues I’ve ever seen,” Maggie said in a somewhat loud voice. Kelsey discretely looked over at the workers to see if anyone had heard Maggie’s statement, but it appeared that no one had. The workers were too busy discussing which parts of the statues to polish. “Why are they polishing them so much?” Maggie’s voice was much louder this time, and the workers turned to look at the group when they heard her question.

  “Why are we polishing them?” a worker said as he turned to look at Maggie. “To get ready for the big funeral, of course. But we always keep them beautiful. Each one of these is marvelous in a different way, and they’re all significant for a unique reason.” He pointed to a statue half a block away. “That’s the wife of the founder. She’s holding the key to the city. They say that it was the most beautiful key that ever was, but the original was lost some time ago. Now all we have is this replica on the statue.”

  “I don’t see her holding anything,” Maggie replied.

  “It’s right there!” the worker said, pointing halfway down the featureless marble column.

  “Nope,” Maggie replied shaking her head. “Nothing there.”

  “Get closer. You can’t see anything from this distance.”

  Maggie walked all the way over to the statue, and Kelsey followed her.

  “Do you see anything?” Maggie asked as she studied the figure up close.

  “There’s sort of a line here,” Kelsey replied, pointing to what looked like a subtle diagonal bump in the column. It was about seven inches in length. “It’s not much, but can you see how it kind of bubbles outward?”

  “Yeah. Sort of,” Maggie said with agreement. “But it looks nothing like a key.”

  “These statues barely look like people.”

  They walked back over to the team of workers and stood next to Roland. The workers didn’t acknowledge Roland or attempt to speak with him, and Kelsey wondered if they could see him.

  “Did you see the key? Isn’t it lovely?”

  “I think so,” Maggie said after hesitating.

  “That’s why we have to keep these splendid works highly polished – so they don’t lose their beauty, especially now that we need to plan for the funeral,” the worker said. “If the procession passes through town – which we think it will, because we’re the most beautiful city in the kingdom – we want everything to look
extra special.”

  “But you’re taking away everything that makes them unique,” Maggie said. “Now they all look the same.”

  “We know they’re different,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”

  “Is it?” Maggie asked, but before she could continue her questioning, Kelsey was tugging on her arm, pulling her away.

  “You’re doing a great job,” Kelsey said to the worker. “Thank you for taking such good care of them. It was nice meeting you.” She forced a smile as she pulled Maggie down the road. “It’s no use talking to them,” Kelsey said once they were down the road a way. “They don’t see what they’re doing. The only thing they see are their intentions.”

  “This place is weird,” Maggie replied.

  “What is this place, Roland?” Kelsey asked, turning to look at him.

  “The City of Eternal Beauty.”

  “It doesn’t look that beautiful.”

  “I didn’t say it was beautiful. It’s called that because the people here try to preserve beauty. I didn’t say they were successful at it.”

  “Clearly, they’re not. What they’re doing to preserve beauty is actually taking it away,” Kelsey said. “Those statues looked terrible. They didn’t even look like statues anymore. Those were works of art at one time, but now they’re ruined.”

  “From the people’s perspective, they’re keeping the statues beautiful by removing the imperfections that come from time, age and weather.”

  Kelsey looked around. She studied the buildings, all of which had been scrubbed clean, sanded and painted with a fresh coat of white paint. Everything was white.

  “But imperfections don’t make something ugly,” Kelsey said.

  “What they think they’re doing is restoring these things to their original state by removing the evidence of the events that have given the things character,” Roland said. “But nothing ever stays the same, and there’s no way to go back.”

  “What is he saying?” Maggie asked. “I wish I could hear him. You don’t know what it’s like not to hear someone who’s talking right in front of you.”

  “I do, actually,” Kelsey replied as she looked into Maggie’s pale blue eyes. “When I first met the king I couldn’t hear anything he said, and I thought he was a mute.” Kelsey quickly relayed the story of how she had met the king.

  “Then you do understand,” Maggie said as she adjusted the weight of her backpack. “I feel so left out of the conversation.”

  Kelsey thought back to how she felt excluded on her first journey when Megan the snow leopard could speak with the king. She realized that she was now being selfish by keeping all the conversations with Roland to herself, and she decided that she needed to find a way to help Maggie hear Roland or at least take part in the conversations. She began explaining what Roland had told her about the city, but before she could finish they stumbled upon a large crowd blocking the road.

  “What the … What’s going on?” Kelsey asked as she stood up on her toes to look over the heads of the people in the crowd. They were pushing and shoving one another, trying to move toward a large torch. People were trying to get as close as possible, and several of them were nearly burned as they brushed too closely to the flame. Kelsey took a step back and looked around to see if there was some way to get past this group of people behaving erratically.

  “It’s one of the city lights,” Roland explained. Kelsey immediately repeated his words to Maggie. “Everyone wants to get close to them because the light from the torch makes the person appear more beautiful.” Kelsey repeated his response word for word, and then she looked around. She spotted a large flower pot and jumped on top of it to get a better look.

  It was true. Kelsey saw that as people approached the torch, their features became brighter and they appeared more attractive in the light of the flame. Rough skin, scars and imperfections disappeared. People appeared more stylish and confident. However, as soon as the person was pushed or stepped away from the light, he or she looked even less attractive than before being in the light. At first she thought she was seeing things or that it was a fluke when it happened with the first person. But then she saw it happen to person after person.

  “They’re actually losing beauty,” Kelsey announced to Roland and Maggie after she had jumped down from the flower pot.

  “That is an unfortunate side effect,” Roland said, nodding in agreement. Kelsey echoed his words again. “Are you going to keep doing that?” He asked her.

  “I just wanted Maggie to feel included since she can’t hear you,” Kelsey explained.

  “You don’t need to do that,” Maggie said.

  “No, you don’t,” Roland agreed. Kelsey looked helplessly from one to the other.

  “I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly. “I’m not very good with people and I was just trying to find a way that we could all talk with one another.”

  “Well, it’s weird,” Maggie said as she scrunched up her nose and leaned up against the rough brick of the building next to her.

  “It’s annoying,” said Roland. “There are better solutions.”

  “Don’t worry,” Maggie said with assurance as she moved away from the building again. “Maybe it’s not important that I hear everything right now. You can hear him and you can both hear me, so I think this will all work out. I don’t know how, but I think it will be fine.”

  “I agree. It will be fine,” Roland said.

  “Well, what about these people?” Kelsey asked. “They’re blocking the road and there’s no way we can get through – not to mention that they’re behaving foolishly.”

  “We can’t solve the problem of their foolishness,” said Roland. “This is part of the culture of the city. People have been fighting to stand next to the city lights for decades and they won’t change now.”

  “It’s like those torches are feeding off the beauty around them while maintaining the impression that they’re giving beauty,” Kelsey mused aloud.

  “They are,” Roland replied solemnly. “But this is not an issue that we need to solve right now. It’s a problem for another day.”

  “How do we get around them, then? Is there another road?” Kelsey turned around to look in several directions. There were a few alleys and side streets, but they were all dead ends.

  “No,” Roland replied. “And we have a task to finish in this city before we move on.” Kelsey shook her head, and Maggie understood that this was the only way through.

  “Perhaps we could move the flame,” Kelsey suggested. “Is there a way to force the flame to relocate out of our way?”

  “No, once a flame takes root and people know where to find it, the flame will not give up the space,” Roland explained. Kelsey again shook her head.

  “I could make another flame,” Maggie suggested. “If we went back to the explosives store and bought the right supplies, I could make an even bigger flame and maybe that will draw the crowd away from this one.”

  “It will take more than a bigger flame to convince these people to leave the one they’ve already found,” said Roland.

  “What else do we need?” Kelsey enquired.

  “We need them to want the flame. It has to be more desirable than the one they’re currently drawn toward.”

  “How do we make it more attractive, then?” Kelsey asked.

  “I can set things on fire and make them explode,” Maggie replied defensively, “but I don’t know how to make people want one burning thing over another.”

  “Then we ask for assistance,” said Roland decisively.

  “From whom?” Kelsey asked.

  “Nicholas,” Roland answered.

  “But he’s not here,” said Kelsey.

  “Who’s not here?” Maggie asked. When Kelsey told her, all she replied was, “I miss him.”

  Chapter

  10

  Getting More Real

  Nicholas had advanced to the point where he could scry for brief periods to see things in far away locations. It took
a lot of energy, but he could observe things for up to half an hour before his body felt tired enough to collapse. He’d never been an athlete, but after scrying for half an hour in a distant location, his whole body ached, and he felt nauseated. He imagined that this was how athletes must feel after a long competition.

  He still wasn’t sure how to discern reality or how to use scrying in order to accomplish the task, but he did know that he was getting better at it.

  “Eventually, you’ll be scrying into the Academy of Miracles to attend classes,” Moss said. “That’s not to say that you won’t be going back there, but for now you have a lot to learn here with me, also.”

  Nicholas nodded. He missed his friends. Jovan was one of the smartest people he had met, and he had been Nicholas' best friend ever since he arrived at the Academy. They had been through a lot together. Although Jovan was still a student, he was helping to manage the academy, and therefore, he was unable to visit Nicholas often. Nicholas was looking forward to attending lessons with his friend, even if he couldn’t be there in person.

  “You’re doing very well with the scrying,” Moss said. “It’s time to take it to the next level.”

  “How do we do that?” Nicholas asked.

  “By having you interact through scrying, and not just observing.”

  “Can that be done?”

  “Of course,” Moss replied. “Anything can be done. As usual, it’s more a matter of whether it should be done. We’ll begin by playing hide and seek.”

  “The game?”

  “Yes. Do you know another Hide and Seek that might be more interesting?”

  “No,” Nicholas said after a moment of thought.

  “Well, then we’ll begin by having Newton hide somewhere.” Moss turned to the gargoyle. “Find a good place, not too far off the ground — and stay off the roof. I know how you love it up there.”

  “I can’t help it if I like heights,” Newton said defensively as he left the room, his squat figure waddling as he walked, dragging his wings limply on the ground behind him.

  “You have until we count to 20,” Moss called after him and then turned to Nicholas. “When we reach 20, you may begin scrying to explore the castle and find him. I recommend that you start with the pantry. He usually goes for a snack every time I leave him on his own for a few minutes.”