by M. Woodruff
Nodding contentedly to himself, Nels even found a tune to whistle, as he walked along behind Casandra. It was still a beautiful day on the Farmer’s farm—ha! yes, it was—he started humming that instead.
Casandra suddenly whipped around in a fury; her loose hair strands looking like fiery lightning bolts shooting out from her head.
“Would you mind keeping your...ditties…to yourself? I am about to show you what means everything to me and this is how you treat it? As some stroll in the park for your own personal amusement. Well I’ll tell you, Mister Hunter, I’ve about had enough of your cavalier ways and rude manners. I thought you had a special gift too, but obviously I was wrong; you, sir, are nothing more than a…a…an uncivilized barbarian!” Throwing her chin up in the air and clenching her hands into fists, Casandra continued marching to her pool with renewed vigor.
Nels didn’t bother speaking or trying to catch up. He knew he would be able to do nothing right at this point and didn’t mind just keeping to himself walking slowly behind—it gave him time to think and her to cool down. An uncivilized barbarian, really! Yes, he might be a simple woodsman who enjoyed sleeping on hard ground under a canopy of leaves, but that was a far cry from a filthy cretin. And no manners? Her family was the one with no manners; he had been perfectly polite and under such harsh circumstances. He had also listened to her story about her “world traveling” with interest until she had gotten furious at him for doing so, and she dared to tell him he had no manners.
Nels was just about to go tell Casandra this newest revision of facts as he saw them and that he would whistle, hum, or sing as many ditties as he felt like, when he saw her take two steps down into the pool and disappear.
Nels couldn’t believe his eyes. One minute she had been standing there and then the next—she was gone, really truly gone.
Upon watching her vanish he ran to the edge of the pool—surely she must have just fallen in or was hiding underwater, but no; he walked around the perimeter of the pool twice to no avail. He could see all the way to the bottom of the glassy surface and there was no Casandra hidden under it. Now he was flummoxed. Should he run get Virgil and Hattie? No, definitely not Hattie—he shuddered at the thought. Had she really traveled to another world, just like she had said she could?
“Well the proof is in the pudding, as they say,” Nels—no barbarian—said as he stepped down into the pool.
One step, then two.
Casandra had been done talking with Nels. She couldn’t find the words to express what she had needed to, and everything he did or said seemed to be mocking her with ferocious glee. In a huff of fury she had kept on walking into the pool instead of stopping at the edge like she had planned, and done a little explaining. Now here she was in Sandrid, and she had to steel herself to wait for who knew how long before Nels would be smart enough to follow her lead and take the steps into the pool. Of course, that was assuming he actually was gifted enough to be able to use the liquid Portal. But, she had seen him emerge from the one in the woods, so even if he didn’t understand it, he had to be more than just Awakened.
Sandrid had been the first world she had ever visited, on accident, as a girl of merely ten. She had been playing in the woods when she had found herself on the straightest road she had ever seen. It seemed to span from one end of the forest to the other; as she kept walking she had begun to see a little black dot further down the path that kept growing in size the longer she walked, until finally she was standing in front of…the closest description she could think of was: a large black cave. She didn’t know where it had come from—she had explored these woods her whole life and she never once encountered a cave such as that. She had inched her way forward slowly because the more she looked, she had realized that even though it looked like a cave it didn’t feel like any cave she knew. And there had been no rock borders that caves were supposed to have; instead there had been two long white ledges that each ended with golden triangles on top. Casandra had walked out on one of the ledges with the confidence and curiosity of any ten-year-old explorer, and found herself in the center of a busy market square that she had never before seen.
As she stood there taking in her surroundings, nonplussed, a young man came from behind his vegetable stall to tell her, “now was not yet the time,” and pushed her back unceremoniously into the golden triangular statue she had apparently emerged from, right back into the woods where Casandra saw everything was as it should be. She hadn’t told Mama or Papa about her experience because she had had a feeling she shouldn’t—that they wouldn’t understand or it wasn’t their place to know. Something about the way that young man said “now was not yet the time” made her think she had better keep her secret to herself because it was something that might be useful to her in the future—that small word, with such potential—yet.
Now here she stood on the streets of Sandrid once again after numerous trips over twenty-five years since that first fateful day. And for the first time she was hopeful that she had chosen wisely in Nels and that he really did have the gift. She knew there were others like her—she had met one on that day back when she was a child, Javin Bone; he was the young man that day who had pushed her back into her own world. She was but a child and he had been set to guard that particular Portal, as it had been known to be a troublesome one with a mischievous streak for gusting passerby with noxious odors—sometimes with a little noxious substance thrown in for good measure.
Javin had been the one to visit her five years later when she was fifteen. She had almost forgotten about the experience until he had shown up one day in the woods. He had been dressed in the most curious costume Casandra had ever seen: a long orange robe with beautiful gold weavings decorating the sleeves and hem, on his head he wore a conical gold hat. He didn’t speak to her that day only nodded his head then chimed two small cymbals between his forefinger and thumb, pointed his right hand at the now-opened Portal that she had entered before, nodded again then departed through said Portal.
Casandra took the spectacle to be an elaborate invitation to visit that strange land she had accidently stepped into five years previous. She had never forgotten it, but she hadn’t really dwelt on it either. Now she figured “yet” had finally arrived. When she had walked out of the golden cone statue this time, it was in the middle of a multi-colored tile courtyard. Every tile was completely unique in design: strange patterns of purple and blue or red and gold—every color combination imaginable tickled her eyes with such delight, she had gasped. The cold stone tiles had seemed so alive with movement and motion that was gentle in its embrace, like a warm quilt on a cold winter’s night.
She had heard him smile then, followed by a pleasant chuckle, and there her mysterious stranger sat on an intricately carved dark wooden bench nestled under a tree with light green leaves that swayed with his laughter on their delicately hanging branches. He had welcomed her to Sandrid and introduced himself as Javin Bone. He was no longer wearing the orange robes, but now he had on one that was deep royal blue with shimmery white embellishments, that had emitted a diffuse glow in the shade of the tree. And his long, curled beard was such a shiny black that it looked to have been shellacked with diamond pomade. On his head he had a beehive hat the same royal blue fabric as his robe, but it seemed to glow from within like a paper lantern.
His white teeth had their own spectral quality as he had told her that when she had first come to Sandrid he was the young man who had pushed her back through the Portal into her own world. She had been too young, but when the time was right and she could begin learning her art he would bring her back. He was to be her guide—not master, mind, as with a master and apprentice in the physical sense, but more of a spiritual teacher.
Casandra’s mind had been unable to comprehend even the simplest concept of “spirit”—she had never even heard the word; not to mention the fact that she was in another world, which she had entered through a triangle, talking to a strange man about learning “her art,” while she had nev
er even been allowed to visit Krankor’s Town. What had happened to her as a child had seemed somehow logical to her less experienced mind, but now…it had been all too overwhelming. And somehow knowing that, Javin had sent her back through the Portal with a token embellishment plucked from his robe and his promise that when it was time for her next lesson the woodland Portal would reappear.
Until that day she had held onto, what she was later to learn was a perfect pearl, with such care she had even sewn hidden compartments into her dresses so she would never have to be far from it. As her days, which had once seemed so alive with tilled earth and the changing seasons, now they had been reduced to drudgery. Even entering the woods produced a feeling of disappointment instead of the previous thrill of exploration for its own sake. Casandra had even begun to offer pleadings to her pearl talisman with the thought that just maybe Javin would hear her and open up her small world once again.
It had taken a year for the Portal to appear and when Casandra had rushed through with joy she was taken aback to see not a tiled courtyard, but the perimeter of a marble fountain. The golden cone was now centered on a pedestal as the centerpiece of a large flowing aqua park. Jets of water arched in the air from tiny holes placed within white marble marked with eddies of deep rich sapphires. Gaps that had been cut in the marble to allow the water to collect left stepping squares so one could walk through the fountain if they didn’t mind getting slightly wet. Looking down into the clear water troughs Casandra saw tiny red fish swimming in schools.
And there at the far end stood Javin looking much the same as she had last seen him with the same welcoming smile. She had been confused, of course, to the change in location, and that was when she had learned that time did not pass relatively between worlds—in fact, many years had occurred in Sandrid. “But you look the same,” she had complained to Javin; whereas he had told her appearances could be but deceptions and to never rely on them in totality.
He had led her to a bench worked with the same degree of skill as the previous one, but this one was worked in silver and polished to reflect the rainbows coruscating from the water drops floating in the sky. There he had asked her how her life had been since their last meeting; and as she described the boredom and entrapment farm life now encased her in, he had smiled and told her that was her first lesson. She had had to learn there was life and there was life. The first life was based on the physical experience: all the joys and sensations one could find and share within the context of one’s determined sphere. Some people lived in close-knit circles of friends and families, while others traveled to expand their sphere with broader enrichments; but they all were still part of the first life. The second life, was what she had now seen and longed for. No matter how many lands within her own world she traveled to or how many new people she met, they would all lack the luster of discovery she had found whereupon she first entered the Portal.
How right he had been. Over the years, Javin had taught her how she must accept the baser physical life and find the joys in it through the expanded view of the life she had been awakened to. At first she had denigrated her very existence in The Kingdom, ruing the day she had been born on a farm, no less—why couldn’t she have at least been born in the faraway King’s City. Having been so sheltered she had not quite understood how the concept of a large city still fell under Javin’s definition of the first life. She still had tied her yearnings to physical locale for the apparent differences it could bring into her life as opposed to any intrinsic value it might offer up in her own second-life maturation.
Her parents had taken the brunt of her angst, chalking it up simply to a burgeoning young woman with no real prospects of marriage. Her father had even planned to visit other towns besides Krankor’s to begin scouting for any available young men—or possibly, even old men if the prospects turned out to be slim, but he had kept that thought to himself.
Virgil and Hattie’s matrimonial plans for their daughter had abruptly ground to a halt though on the day Casandra began building—well, excavating would be the proper word for what they saw with their own eyes—a pond in the plains between the farmhouse and the forest. She had awoken on the first cold morning, when all the harvesting and storing had been done for the winter, and announced over breakfast that since she had no real chores to help with she could be found in the plains out front if needed. And with that, she had bundled up in her winter coat, knit cap, scarf, and gloves before grabbing a shovel and heading out the door.
Normally, Virgil hadn’t been one to pay overmuch attention to what his daughter did during her spare time, but not having much to do himself he had decided a brisk walk might do him some good to stave off impending winter fat. He found Casandra in the plains as she had said, but what he didn’t expect to see was a five-foot deep hole lined with some kind of white stone. There hadn’t been the big pile of dirt that he would’ve expected to see and Casandra didn’t even seem to be very dirty or winded for someone who had just dug a five–foot hole at record speed. Upon seeing him, she simply explained she was, “just digging a pond, Papa, if that’s okay, of course?” It hadn’t really been a supplication for permission, as he well knew, so Virgil just nodded, and left. He never did understand members of the opposite sex, and he certainly couldn’t understand what had gotten into this one; but he knew from that point on that she was undeniably touched in the head, and it was because he had waited too long to find her a good husband and now he never would.
When he had told Hattie what her daughter was outside doing, she had wanted to see for herself. Back, Virgil reluctantly went, dreading the verbal discord that was sure to follow once Hattie set her eyes on her daughter digging holes in the ground. He had been surprised to see how much progress Casandra had made, for when once it had been a hole only three-feet across it was now past ten feet with still a depth of a consistent five feet inlaid with that strange white stone. Catching her in the midst of her work, Virgil now saw she wasn’t actually digging but lifting up the top three inches of soil that had been covering…open space…between the rim and the bottom of the pond. Hattie had noticed the unnatural work transpiring before her very own eyes, shot Virgil a withering glare, and then proceeded to stomp back to the house and make an unusually noisy lunch.
When Casandra had arrived back later that night, they had all had a very quiet dinner—not a word was spoken. The next morning Virgil was puttering around in the barn when Casandra had come running breathlessly in shouting, “Papa! Papa! Come see!” and took off running, yelling for Hattie. Both dutifully followed their daughter with growing unease in their stomachs—neither was much in the mood for any new strangeness today. When they had reached the plains, their mouths had gaped and their eyes had bulged, because they were viewing the clearest, most beautiful pond they had ever seen. Somehow that big hole had been filled with sparkling water over night. At which point, Hattie hmph’d, glared at Virgil, and then they both had stomped back to the house never to speak of the pond again, knowing their daughter was somehow ruined.
3
Nels opened his eyes and found he was standing in the middle of a fountain, water misting over him, but not soaking wet like he’d expected. He wondered for a moment if he was dead—probably not, was his conclusion. He took a step forward to try and orient himself—on this sunny day standing in a bunch of frolicking water—he was having trouble seeing clearly. He made his way forward on the stepping blocks—he was lucky enough to have noticed the troughs of water, so he wouldn’t be getting his leg wet and breaking it at the same time—when he heard his name.
“Nels! Oh, Nels! You made it!”
Next, he was rushed by said voice, which he hoped very much was Casandra. He didn’t have a chance to see precisely as a body was throwing itself against him and wrapping itself around him. He was doing all he could to stay upright against the onslaught.
Suddenly he heard peals of laughter. “Oh, Nels, I’m so sorry,”—more laughter—“You just don’t know what it means that you’re
here.” It was Casandra, all right.
“You’re right, I don’t know what it means, and where is here?” Nels responded just as gruffly as he felt.
“Here, come with me over to this bench and I’ll explain everything. I promise.” Casandra settled down and sounded more serious.
Nels followed her over to a bench that looked to be made out of solid crystal. It resembled an ice sculpture made of tiny interlocking spider webs. He had never seen its like before. He wondered how anyone could have such skills to design such a wonder, let alone to actually craft it.
Sitting on the bench next to Casandra, he finally got a good look at the fountain he had just emerged from, and froze. There in its center was a large golden cone perched atop a marble pedestal. He felt his blood run cold as he realized it was an exact replica of the one he had seen back in that aberrant black hole in the forest.
“Where are we?” he demanded of Casandra, “and what is that…thing?”
Casandra straightened her back and looked indignant, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear. “I’m getting to that. To answer your first question: we are in Sandrid. And no, don’t interrupt. I told you I could travel to other worlds, and well, here we are. Second question: the gold cone was designed by a man I hope you will meet named Javin Bone. It is the symbol of his Awakening. Mine is the pool; we combined the two here for aesthetic reasons.”
