Fantastical Ramblings

by Irene Radford

  “You’re me!”

  “Finally.”

  “An older version of me.”

  “Time runs different in Faery. I’ve had a devil of a time keeping this place linked to the maze. Time keeps trying to rip it away. Rip this place away so that you couldn’t cross over, couldn’t learn from your mistake.”

  She set a bowl of stew in front of me. I’d learned in the field to eat what I could, when I could. No telling when the next meal might fit into the schedule. Out of habit I flipped the serviette onto my lap and raised my fork with the same curious grip I’d watched her use. Consciously I moved my thumb back to a more normal position. Then I looked at the stew again.

  No smell equals no appetite.

  I set the food back into the bowl and pushed my chair away from the table. My feet drew me back to the window. I reached for the lever. Fascinated and repulsed by the horror outside, I couldn’t help myself. I had to see it again, had to know if this was truly my fate.

  “Don’t open that!”

  “Why not?” I edged the lever down a fraction. Instantly the red glare surged around the shutter, filling the room with the fiery glow.

  “I’ve seen more than enough of it.” The old woman began eating her own meal, concentrating on it rather than me or the window.

  “I need to know what happened to me at Stonehenge,” I said, still staring at the swirling red and black chaos outside. Had I raised the shutter or had it opened completely by itself? Or had the things out there manipulated it?

  Maybe they’d manipulated me. They had once before.

  “You don’t want to know what happened to you. That’s why you block it from your memory.”

  “But I didn’t block it.” My insides began to tremble as I relived being caught within the same swirling vortex that I watched through the window. I felt again the pain as jolt after jolt of burning energy shot through me, pushing me here, pulling me there, yanking at my soul; trying to separate me from my body.

  Because that’s what was out there, the lost souls of those who took a wrong turn trying to cross over to the Otherworlds.

  Mazes are tricky. The paths narrow. They require absolute concentration to keep your feet within the lines and your mind on your goal. Not sure of the goal? Your mind wanders. Your balance tilts and suddenly you are on a different path, though it looks the same but takes you elsewhere.

  I thought the chaos had stolen vital pieces of me. Now I thought different.

  “Yes, you blocked it. I’d know what happened if you hadn’t forced the memory from you. I am you after all.”

  “No you aren’t.”

  “Now you are being ridiculous.”

  “Now I’m being logical. The glass in your knitting only allows you to watch and listen. It doesn’t let you into my mind. You can guess a lot from what you see and hear. But you can’t know.” Angrily I pointed outside. “I remember those things.”

  The woman reared away from the scene, kept her eyes on the fire, which now blazed merrily with new fuel that hadn’t been there a few heartbeats ago.

  “I am you. You are me,” she insisted.

  “When I first stepped out of the Stonehenge circle, I thought you’d stolen my curiosity, my optimism, my joie de vivre. That’s why I had to come find you. To get them back. But, you know, if you had truly stolen them, I’d never have come. I wouldn’t have needed to know what lay on the other side of this maze.”

  As I spoke, a gradual transformation washed over the woman. Her face morphed into a skeletal reflection of the horrible energy outside. Her body elongated and thinned. She gave off a blinding glare.

  I threw an arm over my eyes. As I had at Stonehenge.

  The blackness, the inability to see what she/he/it wanted me to see saved me. Gave me the strength to return to my own time and place.

  “You can’t hide from me. You can’t keep me here any longer.” The thing’s voice tolled in deep tones, like a mournful ocean buoy. “I touched your mind at Stonehenge. I linked to you so that you would have to come find me. Rescue me.”

  The resonance of that voice masked direction and distance from me.

  “You couldn’t steal anything from me, so you laid a blanket of energy over the good things in my mind. You hid them from me. But you also hid my thoughts, my true self, from yourself.”

  A sense of increased heat from my right. The thing moved toward the doorway. Slowly, at the same speed the chaos drifted about.

  “I won’t let you leave me here,” I said, edging blindly toward the exit myself.

  “You have no choice,” it chuckled. “You know the rules of Faery as well as I do. One person came through the portal, only one can go out. You came in. I leave. That was the plan all along.”

  “I don’t think so.” I pushed all my will power into running. Running fast. Faster than the Thing. It was still tied to the speed of life in the chaos. I still had enough humanity to use my burst of adrenaline.

  Electric heat seared me from my temple to my heels on the right side as I passed it. I cried out in pain. Half of me didn’t want to work.

  But I kept going. Somehow. Only then did I allow myself to open my eyes. Vision gave me accuracy.

  I stumbled on the steps. The thing caught up with me. But it didn’t touch me again. Its left side dragged.

  We had wounded each other. Full contact might kill us both. Or throw us through the portal to somewhere else.

  I couldn’t take that chance. I had to reach the maze entrance before it did. I had to have both feet and my body fully inside its perimeter before it set foot on the path.

  Shuffling and dragging, we raced neck and neck.

  I kept my eyes on the grass, willing the maze to come back to my view. The thing might have other senses to detect it.

  The grass remained uniformly green. A construct, just like the rest of the clearing. Cabin and trees merely pieces of energy thrown together to attract me.

  Or to house the thing. An eternity of symmetry and beauty when it was born out of chaos and horror.

  “You were exiled here,” I called as my feet found an imperfection in the grass, a slight ridge. The edge of maze. I had to stall while I sought the beginning.

  “The portal was constructed to send you here,” I continued. “You and you alone. This is your punishment for wreaking havoc in my world.”

  It felt along the grass with its own feet, seeking the same opening I did.

  “So I let loose a little plague.” The black and red energy that surged around its amorphous form rippled as it shrugged.

  “A plague that wiped out over thirty percent of Europe’s population.”

  Was that a break in the ridge my toes had found? Yes! I tried to orient myself to where I had emerged. Beginning and end were not the same.

  I had come out under the oak tree. Now I stood in the center of the clearing.

  I moved on, working my way clockwise around the outside of the maze. I had to enter where I had exited. I had to walk it the exact opposite direction as before.

  The thing shouted in triumph as it found the break.

  “Stupid, human. Just like all the rest. I eliminated the weak and wasteful ones. Only the strongest and most intelligent survived. And you aren’t one of them.” It chortled and took a step forward. The maze remained dormant.

  I found the other end of the maze at last. Drawing in one deep breath, I stepped inside. The instant my second foot set down on the path I knew I’d chosen correctly. Restoring energy tingled against my soles.

  Across from me the Thing continued to berate me and my kind. I seemed to wander aimlessly.

  Before me, the pathway blazed white against a green background. Carefully I followed where it led, keeping my eyes and concentration down. I had to ignore the Thing. I had to force it to remain here.

  “An Exorcist first banished me to the wilderness. But it wasn’t a wilderness long. The natives thrived under my tutelage, making war upon their more plentiful neighbors to the west,” the Thi
ng sneered.

  I kept walking. “Explorers, missionaries, or devout fur traders, someone found you. And found you out. They constructed the maze and banished you once more. This time you went to hell.”

  My perception of the Thing faded. The grass beneath my feet turned brown and brittle. The wavering images of trees and cabin shrank to low clumps of sage and rabbitbrush.

  “One person’s heaven is the next person’s hell,” I said. My voice fell flat, fully contained by the intricacies of the maze. “Hell is all around us. Only a step away.”

  The Thing could reach out and touch people through the mazes of the world. It could suck away your life’s energy if you let it. But it could only escape through this maze.

  I stumbled and fell forward into Wendell Follmoth’s arms. Bright desert sun beat against my eyes. Dry heat wicked sweat away from my skin.

  I nearly laughed in relief.

  “Monica, where have you been these past three days?” Wendell asked.

  The other grad students and volunteers were so intent on clearing the last of the dirt and plants from the slab of anomalous rock they barely noticed my arrival.

  “It’s a hoax, Dr. Follmoth. Let the developers destroy it,” I gasped. My eyes sought the bulky bulldozers and other arcane equipment one hundred yards away.

  “Monica, I think it’s real. Look at it, it’s genuine!” he protested.

  “Destroy it now!” I insisted.

  “This discovery will set the archaeological world on its ear. Your career is made and mine revitalized.”

  “Destroy it now, or destroy yourself. It’s an elaborate hoax.” I fixed him with a stern gaze. “Let the developers wreck it or I will drop the first charge of dynamite on it myself.”

  “Are you sure.”

  “Absolutely. Universes are kept separate for a reason. Risking a crossover with a ritual maze is more dangerous than you can imagine.” I made myself take the last step, fully separating myself from the lure of the path. Then I walked over to the first huge yellow machine and fired up the engine.

  ~THE END~

  The Fall

  When Alma Alexander first asked me to contribute to her anthology The River published by Dark Quest Books, she showed me a map of a river that would become the table of contents. I knew in that moment that I had to write a story from the point of view of the water. And what other water would I want to write about than the waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge, my spiritual home.

  <<>>

  Joy! I slide around rocks and under low hanging branches. I tumble and summersault. Then I pause, gathering my nerve, and dive over the cliff, spraying outward. My droplets catch the tail of an unwary blue jay. He squawks and flits upward, scolding me. I laugh with him and continue my free fall. As I pass the cliff face I pick at a crack, etching my signature a little deeper, sculpting timeless designs into basalt hardened by fire and time.

  A breathless drop into the plunge pool. A ceaseless tumult follows me, pushing and shoving, until I lap at the mossy banks. But I am restless and relentless. I bully my path away, back to the center, catch on a submerged boulder and log jam, and force a whirlpool to spin into the current, and then off down the twisted creek that all too soon joins the big river.

  That grand old lady churns slowly toward a turbulent assignation with the sea. She is so used to battling rivers and streams much bigger than me for territory and dominance, she barely notices as I slide into her. I must merge and blend with her, insinuating one drop at a time into the mud and silt of Madame’s waters.

  Then back to the top of the cliff, and repeat. The joy of my existence sends me plunging over the edge. Ever constant, ever changing, ever picking at the rock behind and underneath me, molding it to fit my will.

  People come to my banks around the plunge pool when the days warm, when the sun creeps past the Equinox and warms the soil, inviting blades of grass to turn deep green and flowers to shyly poke through the leaf litter. They are hesitant, plants and people alike —and rightly so. A late frost causes all living things to hunker down, seeking shelter where they may. But then… the sun breaks through the cloud cover, and warmth returns.

  Children play in my shallows. Their elders bathe in my pool. They dance toward each other and back in an endless courtship. Then they trip off to a hidden bower.

  I delight in the wonder of watching them hunt and gather. Their numbers increase with new babes—more babes appear than elders go off into the wilderness to breathe their last and merge with the land, some of their essence slipping into my depths. I cherish those that come to me like this , cradle them, return them to their maker. Their souls blend with mine as we tumble and fall over that wondrous cliff, each of us adding our own ideas to the sculpting and etching of the rock—like the time when a great block of stone gives in to our constant irritation and its own weight. There is a sigh, a mighty groan, and then it relinquishes the fight to stay bound to the cliff and plunges and shatters and bounces and rolls toward the shallows.

  People scream and dive away. When our droplets settle into the pool and the land stops groaning in pain at the sudden bruising blow, the people creep back. They marvel at the change in their landscape. They touch and explore and eventually laugh at their escape from the crushing power of that rock.

  I laugh with them, swirling new currents around the boulder, inviting them to once more swim and play with me.

  The seasons progress toward heat and dry. I am diminished in size, power, and wonder. The glacier far away on the mountain top, the source that feeds and sustains me, offers cooling relief to my people as they stand within the shower of my fall or bask in the playful spray I still manage to squirt into odd places. The cliff gets a respite, a reprieve from my constant etching and sculpting.

  Eventually the rains return, as they always do. Sometimes early, sometimes late. My people reap the bounty of the fruit and game that the hot days have ripened. A flurry of activity surrounds the drying and smoking of their harvest. I watch and rejoice with them.

  Then, when frost covers the ground every morning and I swell within my banks, widening my spray and working at my great artistic achievement on the cliff face, my people pack up and leave. They take their shelters, their baskets, their tools, and themselves, leaving no trace of their long stay here.

  I go back to tumbling and laughing over the lip and taking the plunge. Time and time again. Always falling; ever constant, ever changing.

  Ice and snow fill the land, freezing my spray across the cliff face. I laugh at the assistance it grants me in my carving. My pool glimmers with a gloss of ice on its surface. I am still powerful enough to crash through this minor barrier and swirl beneath to follow the creek bed down to my reunion with Madame, the grand old river. The frigid days pile on top of each other. The ice thickens and hardens. My spray becomes frozen pellets that mound up into a frothy cone at my base.

  Still, underneath and behind a little bit of me continues the cycle.

  The seasons turn. The days lengthen, the sun brightens, my ice gives way in a gush and I once more renew the land. New plants bravely poke forth from the depths of their cold hiding places, trees send out tentative tendrils of green, and my people return, bringing children to me. We rejoice together at the reunion.

  Children are special. Each babe is unique and I cherish them all. If one falls into my pool before it is ready to swim free, I push them into the shallows, turn them over so they can breathe until someone comes to rescue them.

  <<>>

  There comes a year when there is one special child, one girl child I always look for. She walks painfully. Her feet do not match. I ignore this breaking of symmetry; while swimming in my pool, she is the equal of all my people. Better than any of them. Her smile is enough to make all those around her glow with new lightness. From her earliest days she sings songs, tunes that bring out my hidden glories and make people laugh.

  Her entire life is filled with love. She comes back with my people, year after year, a babe, a to
ddler, a child. A young woman. As she grows, young men vie for her attention despite her twisted foot. She flirts with them all, coyly, giving me as much of her love as she withholds from them.

  When my people return to the bounty surrounding my glade, she is the first to jump into the pool and join her spirit with mine.

  <<>>

  But there comes a different year. A hard, dry year. The rains do not linger. I shrink within my banks far earlier. The sun blasts out more and more heat. The glacier that gives me life dwindles. A strange miasma hovers over the land.

  I have vague memories of it being here before. Long ago. None of my people recognize it for the malice it carries.

  The heat grows, unabated by rain or wind. I shrink further. Only the miasma grows; that vicious, slinking, sneaky fog of sickness.

  A youngling spikes a fever. I have little coolness to ease the alien fire within him—and it is not enough. A day passes when he takes no nourishment and flames eat away at his will to live. On the following day, he dies.

  I want to cry with my people. They loved him so much. I played with him and knew his joy and zest.

  Then another child weakens and burns. And another. The oldest of the old is taken next.

  My people walk about with fear haunting their eyes. They spend more and more of the day absorbing what cool they can find in my sluggish waters. Five bodies are taken into the woods for death rituals I am not privy to. Another five and the remaining people no longer have the strength or the will to take the bodies far enough away. I cannot cleanse the air or the land of their passing.

  I see new shadows in gaunt cheeks.

  Still there is some joy in this land. This is the summer that my special girl child, she of the twisted foot, has fallen in love. He is the bravest and strongest of the hunters. She graces him with her smile and her songs. He gives her a belt of the softest leather covered in tiny shells traded for with other wanderers from far away and bits of shiny rock burned to glass when the great mountain poured fire down on the land.

  They kiss in the shadows behind my fall. I laugh with them, and rejoice, pushing myself to grow, to make my sparse spray fuller and more impenetrable and give them a tiny bit of privacy.