Billy: Messenger of Powers

by Michaelbrent Collings

  Soon, the library was in near-darkness. But still Billy pulled at the cover of the great book. It wasn’t just the ghost noises that were making it difficult, either: the book itself seemed to be resisting his pull, growing slippery and slimy as an eel. It also seemed heavier somehow, like it was drawing extra mass from the air around it.

  There was a sudden click, and Billy felt something move under his hands. He looked at the book, and saw that a dingy padlock and an equally tarnished looking hasp had sprung into existence on the side of the book. With a snap, the hasp shut of its own accord. The padlock slammed closed with finality, locking the contents of the huge book away from Billy’s eyes.

  He let go of the book now. This one was sealed, maybe forever, and couldn’t be opened. As before, once he stopped touching the book, the frightening scream that echoed through Mrs. Russet’s library of memories slowly faded into a whispering cry.

  Billy went to another book. This one was smaller, though still not something he would want to lug around in his backpack. He touched it, and immediately the same things happened. The scream returned, the cover grew clammy and heavy and cold, almost writhing under his fingers. Then another lock appeared, another click sounded, another book of memory was closed to him.

  This time, however, he was aware that as he pulled on the book there was more going on than before. More light bulbs seemed to be going dark, but not only that, the entire library itself seemed to be changing. Before, it had started out as something that reminded him of a school library: metal shelves and stacks of books on fairly new-looking furniture. But the more books he touched, the more dingy and grotesque the library seemed. Cobwebs sprang into existence between the shelves. The dim light bulbs turned into foul-smelling hurricane lamps that flickered eerily. The shelves themselves grew warped and rusted, and as Billy moved deeper into the library, more and more of them looked like they were made of wood, and very old.

  He continued moving, though, occasionally reaching out to touch some book or other, to see what would happen. Each time, the screaming started, the cover would writhe, and the book would end up locked.

  Now, the library he was in bore no resemblance to the place Billy had been in only moments before. The hurricane lamps had been replaced by candles that were propped in holders that looked like they had been fashioned from the skeletal remains of small birds and animals. The shelves themselves were a sick-looking yellow, and curved at the edges. With a start and a shudder, he realized that they were made of what looked like huge bones, lashed together with tendons and strung in huge lines that reached to the sky above.

  The books themselves were more forbidding as well. They were clearly older, more neglected. Most of them looked like they were falling apart, and many of them were covered in strange symbols that Billy didn’t understand but which nonetheless made him shudder in sudden fear.

  But no matter how awful the surroundings, no matter how decrepit the volumes of paper, he couldn’t open a single book. All were sealed away from his eyes, their locks appearing the instant he tried to read any of them.

  Billy remembered what Vester had said before he had come here: that Mrs. Russet was stuck inside herself, reliving some memory over and over. Billy had figured that her memories were recorded in these books, but how could he find the right one? And how could he open it to look once he did find it?

  He looked around. The library was now a completely terrifying place, cold and dank, like something out of a nightmare.

  Of course, he thought. This is her nightmare. This is what Mrs. Russet’s mind looks like when it’s under the Dread. He shivered, and realized that his hands and feet were getting very cold.

  It’s taking me, too, he thought. He hadn’t thought of that. But now he was living in Mrs. Russet’s mind. And so if her mind was being shaped by the Dread, it made sense that he would be infected by that terrible power as well.

  “Mrs. Russet!” he shouted, feeling panic start to well up inside him. The candles flickered in the eye sockets of the skulls they sat in, like horrifying jack-o-lanterns in a Halloween gone terribly, terribly wrong. “Mrs. Russet!” he shouted once more. In fact, it was more of a scream this time.

  Billy started to run aimlessly, shouting his teacher’s name over and over, feeling his own sense of self and purpose start to recede under the gloomy influence of this terrible place. Soon, he became aware that he was shouting Mrs. Russet’s name repeatedly, but couldn’t remember why he was saying that, or what he was doing here. He felt like he was in the belly of some great dark beast, waiting for his turn to be digested.

  “Mrs. Russet!” he screamed again, no longer sure what he was saying, just saying the only words that his growing terror would allow. “Mrs. Russet!”

  And suddenly, he heard something. The banshee screaming was following him like a shadow now, cloaking everything he heard in a shroud of fearful sound. But underneath that noise was something else. Something less actively terrorizing, but perhaps even more hopeless.

  Billy had forgotten his mission. He had forgotten what he was doing here, or who he was here for. He knew only fear now. But he also knew that this new sound was something different in this nightmare world, and anything different had to be a step up. So he listened as best he could, trying to find the source of the noise.

  He turned left down one bone-aisle of books and skeletal light, then right down another. The sound of weeping and woe grew louder. Another left, then straight for a long time. Right. The rows were endless, each darker and drearier than the last, the wind-wail of ghostly howls clinging to him with every step.

  Then Billy turned again, and abruptly came face to face with something. Something unexpected in this nightmare place of hidden Memory. Something he could barely even identify in his state of almost mindless panic.

  What is that? he thought. What is it? What is it?

  Then, after a long while, came an answer: Ah, yes, I know what that is. It’s a woman.

  And so it was. She was young, very young, perhaps twenty years old, maybe less. And she was the source of the endless howling that Billy had followed—and that had haunted him—for what seemed like forever.

  He couldn’t see much of her face, because it was buried in her hands. But she was slim, not too tall. She wore a rather old-fashioned dress and blouse, with black shoes that were the kind Billy’s mother would have called “no-nonsense.” She was crying, huge, body-wracking sobs that shivered her from top to bottom. The cries bounced off the horrid shelves of the library, growing louder and louder as they echoed, and becoming the terrible ghost-screams that had hounded Billy in this place.

  With the crying, however, the screaming and wailing that had so pervaded Billy’s world seemed to withdraw a bit. And as it went, Billy started to feel more like himself again. He still didn’t remember exactly where he was, or even what he was doing there, but he at least had a sense that he was supposed to be doing something in this ghastly place.

  He looked around, lost and frightened, but could find no clues in his surroundings. Just bone and leather, candles and paper. No clues, no solace.

  Billy turned back to the crying woman. “Hey,” he said softly. “Are you okay?”

  Clearly she wasn’t okay, he could already see that, but he for some reason felt like it was important to help her. To stop her from crying.

  The woman looked up. Her face was as young as he had thought it would be. Unlined, uncreased, the face of someone who hasn’t yet experienced much of life.

  “Who are you?” asked the woman.

  “I…I’m Billy,” answered Billy. He wasn’t at all sure that was the right answer, but it was what came to him out of the fog he was trying to find his way through right now.

  I’m losing myself, thought Billy. Just like Vester warned.

  Then on the heels of that thought came another: Who’s Vester?

  But then Billy’s thoughts were drawn back to the woman. She grabbed the hem of her skirt, and used it to dab at her eyes. Billy saw t
hat under the skirt were several layers of petticoats.

  “Oh,” said the woman, with that stuff-nosed voice that always accompanies too much crying. “I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s just that it’s all so terrible.” And with that, she went into a new round of howling sobs.

  Billy patted her uncertainly on the shoulder. “What is?” he asked. She didn’t answer, just continued crying, so he tried again. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  The question stopped the woman’s sobs dead, like some kind of emotional light switch had been flipped to “off” position in her head. “I don’t think so,” she said in a shattered, haunted whisper. “No one can.”

  She looked down, and Billy’s eyes followed hers. He saw that before her, sitting on a table made of what looked like a huge ribcage with a slab of unevenly carved granite atop it, was an open book.

  An open book? he thought. There are no open books here. Not here, not in the Dread.

  Once more, with this thought came the sense that he didn’t really know where these ideas were coming from. Light was beginning to glimmer at the edges of his mind, but still there was too much shadow, too many cobwebs, too much…Dread.

  Billy shook his head and looked at the open book again. It was small, barely the size of a paperback, but with a worn spine that allowed it to sit flat, open to a page about a third of the way through. The other two thirds of the book were sealed with a grisly string of tendon and gristle that wrapped from within the book and bound that last part tightly shut.

  But as Billy looked closer, he saw that the book had no words. Just empty, blank paper stared up at him and the woman. She didn’t seem to realize it, though, focusing all her attention on the open page.

  “It’s blank,” he said.

  “I know,” she answered. This sent her into a new round of wailing. “He’s gone,” she said in a hitching voice between sobs. “He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone.”

  “Who?” asked Billy, growing more and more confused.

  “I don’t know,” answered the woman. “Don’t you see, he’s gone!” And she fell to the ground, clutching at herself and saying “he’s gone” over and over again.

  Billy didn’t know what to do. He wanted to comfort this strange woman, wanted to help her. But he didn’t know what he could do. He looked at the open book again. Clearly, this was the source of her woes. Maybe he could close it, and get her mind on something else.

  But when he tried to do that, he couldn’t. It was as though the book was super-glued to the macabre table below it, unmovable.

  This is the open book in the locked library of Mrs. Russet’s mind, thought Billy. He didn’t know exactly who “Mrs. Russet” was, any more than he had known who “Vester” was. But the thought seemed to make him feel better. It was like he was putting together a jigsaw puzzle in a dark room. All he could do was feel a piece, then touch the rough edges of the other pieces until two clicked together. The picture wasn’t visible to him at all, but he could feel the puzzle coming together, bit by bit.

  The Dread is a re-lived terror, he thought. This is the library of Mrs. Russet’s mind. The books are all shut, except this one. And this one is the one the woman weeps over.

  This is the book of her fear, he realized. And as this thought came to him, so also did the understanding of what he was doing here, and who this mentally and emotionally crippled woman must be.

  “Mrs. Russet,” he whispered. He knew it was so, that it must be so, even though he didn’t understand the how or the why of it all. This woman, young as she was, broken as she appeared, was somehow also his old, implacable, and above all tough history teacher.

  And with that realization came the understanding that whatever was in the open book before him, only Mrs. Russet could read it. Because it was her fear, and hers alone.

  But then how can I help her? thought Billy.

  He knelt down beside the crying girl. “Lumilla,” he whispered. It felt strange to call his teacher by her first name, even in her present form. But it would have been even stranger to call her “Mrs. Russet.”

  Besides, it seemed to have been the right choice, because Lumilla’s crying diminished noticeably as he said her name. “Lumilla,” he said again, as calmly and softly as he could. He touched her shoulder again.

  “That name,” said Lumilla, confused. “That name is familiar.”

  “It’s you,” said Billy. “You’re Lumilla.”

  Her tear-streaked face looked up at him, the barest hint of hope glimmering out of her eyes. “How do you know?” she asked.

  Billy hesitated. This wasn’t Mrs. Russet, not the way he knew her. So he didn’t think she would understand their relationship, not really. Instead of trying to explain it, therefore, he simply shrugged and smiled and said, “Because we’re friends.”

  “We are?” she looked around as she said this, as though afraid that it might not be true. Billy couldn’t blame her. Almost worse than being alone in this terrible place would be having a friend, and then having that friend taken away.

  “Yes,” he said soothingly. “We’re friends. And I’m not going anywhere. I’m here to help.”

  “But how can you help?” she asked, and started weeping again, though more quietly than before. “How can you help when he’s gone?”

  “Who?” asked Billy.

  As before, Lumilla didn’t answer. But this time she stood up and pointed at the book, the empty book that was two-thirds sealed.

  “Lumilla,” he said, “I can’t read it.”

  “Don’t read,” she whispered, and grabbed his hand suddenly. “Feel.” And with that, she forced his fingers to touch the pages of the book.

  Billy had already touched the book, when he had tried to close it. This time, however, touching it at the same time as Lumilla did, he got a sense of what was there. Not a total picture, not the details, but a gist of what she saw in the pages of her fear. It was like he was seeing a movie trailer in his head, just the high points of the story, just the parts that mattered most.

  Lumilla, young. Beautiful, not broken. Bold. Discovering the Power that she was.

  She went from her family. She went on a journey. Finding evil and darkness in the world of the Powers. But also finding light.

  She found someone. A man. “My name is Terry,” the man said.

  “Really?” said Lumilla with a charming giggle. “I’ve always thought that was a funny name.”

  The man smiled. He was strong and tall, with big arms and the kind of presence that made people feel trusted and safe. “Actually, that’s just what my friends call me. And if you think my nickname is strange, you should hear what my real name is.”

  Lumilla laughed.

  And then it was later. Lumilla and Terry were walking in a park. A magical place, with flowers that danced on their stems in the moonlight. There was a pond, and instead of ducks or geese, the water itself formed into living shapes that ebbed and flowed into and out of existence. The couple walked, and talked, and laughed, and planned for the future they would have, the future they would enjoy together.

  Then things moved again, still onward in time. The man was being dressed in a brown cloak. The threads of history marched along the fabric. He sat on a brown throne on the Diamond Dais. Lumilla stood behind him, beaming with pride.

  They held hands.

  They walked in their magical park. They planned a family.

  And then, fire and destruction.

  The War of the Powers. Talks of a family ceased. Terry and Lumilla, still young, found themselves ripped from happiness and thrust into chaos.

  A sudden jump in time. Terry and Lumilla were fighting side by side, calling up the Earthessence to crush the armies of Darksiders that threatened humanity. The battle was fierce, but the tide was turning slowly in favor of the Dawnwalkers, led by Terry and Lumilla, standing side by side in an unbreakable chain of Power and love.

  Then, out of nowhere, a presence. Wolfen. His eyes harsh and angry, his face younger but alrea
dy gnarled and marked by the clawlike grip of anger and hate. His salt-and-pepper hair only black now, but still long and thick.

  He appeared beside Terry. Terry raised his hand, calling up columns from the earth, creating a rock prison around Wolfen. But the Black Power only laughed, and the rocks themselves withered and died before him.

  Lumilla saw what was happening, the danger her husband was in. She screamed. She tried to get to him, but the crushing armies of the Dark were everywhere. Fire, Wind, Water, Earth, Life, and Death surged all around in a wall of disorder.

  Terry fought. But Wolfen was too powerful. The Dark Master laughed. And touched Terry.

  There was a flash of black light, if such a thing were possible.

  Another jump in the story of Lumilla’s and Mrs. Russet’s fearful memory. The War of the Powers was over. Wolfen was vanquished.

  Lumilla went to her husband. Terry was on a bed on Powers Island, recovering with countless other wounded and weary warriors of the Dawnwalkers.

  Lumilla touched his hand.

  “Do I know you?” Terry asked.

  And then, before her eyes, he shriveled and shrunk. He became Rumpelstiltskin. He touched her hand. “It’s dirty,” he said. “You should clean that.”

  “Come away with me,” said Lumilla. “Come back to the world, come back to our special park, walk with me, talk with me.”

  Rumpelstiltskin shook his head and looked around. “With all this mess?” he said, and laughed that crazy laugh that Billy had later heard when spirited away by the rock Fizzles that would come to clean Powers Island.

  Lumilla wept. She was given the Brown Robe. She held the scepter of Power, and read the Book of the Earth. She grew, and aged.

  And was alone.

  Billy suddenly found himself back in the library again. Lumilla was crying. “He’s gone,” she was saying again, over and over, as she had before.

  Billy was shocked, heartbroken. He had never suspected that Mrs. Russet could have such tragedy in her past. Not the strong, almost impervious-seeming teacher that ruled both her class and the Brown Throne with such an iron hand.