Outside a chorus of birds were welcoming the dawn, but Carole scarcely heard as she turned her back to the barnyard. The Murtzes wouldn't notice her absence. They'd be thinking only about pork and profit today. Besides, what more could Beatrice do?
She reached the orchard almost without realizing it. The trees, left untended for years, were mostly dead, buried beneath an impassable growth of brambles and vines. Carole didn't even bother to see if she was being watched, just sprinted towards the nearest clump and leaped at it, feet first.
She slid overtop the thorns as smoothly as if she were surfing a wave, barely an inch of air separating the soles of her feet from the sharp spines beneath. Cresting, she kicked out with easy strokes and skated off, dipping and rising with the contours of the overgrowth and springing effortlessly across large gaps in the foliage. The weight in her stomach began to lessen, and soon melted away completely. Gliding was pure joy.
She flew over a particularly high tangle, dropped to near ground level on the other side and banked hard trying to avoid a forgotten patch of grass, but her left foot caught the turf and she went down in a tumble. "Just what I needed," she muttered, rubbing her elbows and jumping back onto the thicket.
Minutes later she reached a more defined break in the brambles. This time she slid gracefully down to a carpet of velvety green moss growing beneath a gnarled willow perched on the bank of a small brook. The branches of the willow hung low over the water, so she was completely hidden after stepping beneath.
This was her thinking spot, shady in the summer and sheltered in the winter. Only she knew about it and only she could reach it. She arched back to stare at the patches of golden sky shining through the yellow-green canopy. She pulled a small bar of perfumed soap, which she'd recently liberated from the farmhouse from her pocket, turned it over in her hand a number of times.
Although still very early, the air already had a heaviness to it that promised the day would be another scorcher. She pulled off her clothes, crouched on the edge of the stream and scrubbed her dress clean. Then throwing it over a branch to dry, she slipped into the frigid water and gave herself a thorough washing. Afterwards, as she sat drying on the mossy ground watching striders dart over the water's surface, she tried to make sense of the previous evening's events.
They all seemed so far away and unreal in the morning light: the ghosts, the howling creature and that skeletal man. Could they really be connected to her past, as her father-not thought? It had all been so strange.
She put her hands to her head and pressed, "Think, think, think." She searched for a memory, tried to recall anything from her early years but as usual came up empty. "I'm not a freak." She sighed as she got to her feet and massaged her empty and now grumbling belly.
A fried egg on buttered toast would've been nice about now, but it was too late to go back to the farm. She chose to head for school, instead. If she walked slowly and avoided most of the dangerous places along the way, she wouldn't arrive too early.
Some time later, Carole stood overlooking the abandoned works yard. This was where she'd made the first discovery. In a bizarre sort of way it was all thanks to Beatrice Murtz.
She raced down the craggy slope and slid up and over a rusting pile of scrap metal and shattered glass. She kicked up speed, skating a complete circuit around the junk-filled yard, just for the fun of it. If Beatrice only knew. Of course if Beatrice and her gang were to find out about her gifts they'd undoubtedly do more than just call her names, like Jason had.
She slid into the sandpile at the far edge of the yard, her feet wedging into the damp, coarse grit. For a long time she stood there, staring at nothing. Finally, without really thinking about what she was doing, she clambered over the mound and started cross-country.
Surprisingly, the shack was still standing. No one had lived in the place for years, not since Jason's family. She herself hadn't been back since...
The door was long gone, the window glass all busted out. Inside it was empty, except for piles of raccoon scat and mouse droppings.
Carole tiptoed across the floor and peeked out the back. Something was partially buried in the grass. She hopped out the window, waded through the weeds and pulled up the rotted remains of a homemade rocking horse. Jason's or his little sister's? She couldn't remember.
Outside of Hal, Jason was the only person who had learned about her special abilities. They had been good friends. Carole had thought that he, being an outcast like herself, would've been just as thrilled at her discovery.
She had been wrong. Jason had called her a freak, and other things, before he had chased her away. His betrayal had stung far more than the stones.
Carole dropped the toy and moved on.
As she reached the final hill, Carole heard a sharp report. She jogged over the top in time to see the horseless wagon lurch to a stop beside a playground full with students.
Beatrice climbed imperiously down from the smoke-belching contraption.
Carole grimaced. "Foul air and fouler folk."
Moments later, Mrs. Deldimple appeared, ringing a bell, and the students began to gather in single file outside the front door. Carole waited for the line to move before starting down the hill. Instead of joining the others, she turned for the back of the school, to where a weather beaten desk sat propped up on blocks beneath the classroom's windows. She was no longer allowed inside the school.
Beatrice's argument for getting her kicked off the horseless wagon had worked equally well for getting her barred from the building. Apparently the smell of pig manure made learning impossible for other students. As Marvin Murtz had pointed out, "Hired help should consider themselves fortunate to receive any schooling at all."
When the winds came from the east, Mrs. Deldimple cracked a window open so Carole could lean close to listen, but easterly winds often carried storms in from the coast. On those days she spent most of her time huddled beneath a leaky umbrella. Westerly winds meant fair weather but also complaints about pig smell, so the windows stayed shut. Not being able to hear the teacher wasn't much of a problem, though. So long as Mrs. Deldimple faced more or less in Carole's direction, she could read the teacher's lips. Lip reading also proved valuable in helping her avoid most of Beatrice's lame practical jokes.
Hal couldn't afford pen and paper, so Carole made do with a piece of slate and some chalk stone. With these, she was able to practice grammar and writing easily enough, but there wasn't near enough space to copy out homework. As a result, she was forced to memorize the lessons and to complete most of her schoolwork in her head. Fractions, geometry, social studies, biology and everything else the class wrote down, she committed to memory. Of course, this usually meant she got perfect on tests, which infuriated the rest of the class, especially Beatrice, whose average was a C+.
The back of the school was off-limits to the other students, but as none of them would play with Carole anyway, she spent recess practicing gymnastics and reading. She could walk on her hands for five minutes without falling, and read anything the janitor, Mr. Landry, would loan her. Mr. Landry had a collection of books in the school basement which he'd salvaged from yard sales and trash bins.
This morning, Carole noticed a crude figure scribbled on the lid of her desk. She slammed her rucksack down and glared at the window. Inside, a few heads quickly turned away. At least this time they didn't scratch it into the wood. She slumped into her desk and rubbed at the ink.
With summer holidays only days off, the class was doing review work. Today it was the times tables, and as usual Beatrice couldn't get past her times seven. Mrs. Deldimple, already tomato-faced, was threatening Beatrice's drippy nose with a waggling ruler. Normally Carole would've enjoyed the show, but now just looking at Beatrice brought bile to her throat. She slouched back in her seat and closed her eyes.
Just as her head was beginning to nod, she felt a strange pressure tickle her forehead. Instantly awake, she scanned the countryside for the presence she somehow knew was close by. And
there, staring down at her from the hilltop, was the stick man.
How? And why was he sitting on that hill, watching with those fierce eyes? She bit down on a finger nail, but her lips froze in mid-nibble when the man began beckoning with his long, skinny arm. The nail slid unnoticed, down her chin.
Carole looked around. No one else was outside. She peered into the classroom. Beatrice scowled back. It wasn't difficult to decide what to do. Slipping from her desk, she grabbed her rucksack, edged clear of the windows and, with a determined stride and a stomach churning with butterflies, marched up the hill.
As soon as she was close enough to him, he said, "Let's step to the other side shall we? So as to be away from prying eyes." He stood in one fluid motion.
Carole gasped out loud. She'd forgotten just how tall he was. Now, under the light of day his skin looked as pale and greasy as a grub worm's. With a few easy strides he passed behind the hill. She had to run to keep him in sight. He stopped under the shade of a broad maple and sat cross-legged on the ground, with both knees poking through rips in his pants like tent poles through canvas. She halted a few paces away.
He patted the ground next to himself. "Come, come girl, I won't bite." At that moment a grasshopper landed on his knee and his hawk eyes swiveled to study it.
She was certain he was about to pop the insect into his mouth, but he brushed the bug aside.
"Now then, to the heart of the matter," he began without so much as a good morning. "My name is Melodious T. Philamount, Head Instructor, Senior Graduates, Hub Central. My specialty is The Night Shades and Ghostly Spirit Realm, though I do participate in junior field trip preparation from time-to-time."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I am a school teacher. A professor, actually."
"Oh." Carole knew she sounded disappointed.
"Oh, indeed." The professor growled, leaning close. "If you are ever so fortunate as to find yourself in my classroom at Hub Central, young lady, you shall discover what it means to be taught and you shall discover what it means to learn."
"Sorry, but aren't all teachers more or less the same?"
A stormy expression blew across the man's face.
Carole, getting ready to bolt, hastily added, "I mean, how are Hub Central teachers different from the teachers at Piedmont Elementary?"
Melodious T. Philamount snorted and furrowed his enormously bushy eyebrows until they wrinkled together like two kissing albino caterpillars. "That is a question which to answer properly, requires a great deal of time. Time which we do not have. However, for the sake of clarity I shall say this much. Hub instructors believe that teaching a student is very similar to cooking dynamite, too much heat and the student blows up in one's face. Not enough heat and you're left with a useless pile of smelly goo." He peered intensely at her. "Undoubtedly you've observed plenty of goo sliding around Piedmont Elementary?"
She giggled despite herself. "I can think of a few gobs."
"At Hub Central we tolerate no explosions and no goo!" Philamount declared, wriggling his eyebrows and sending them crawling across his forehead in opposite directions.
"Oh, I see," Carole said, wondering how he was able to do that. "So nobody fails at your school?"
"At Hub Central failure is inconceivable, unlike this wretched Monobrain Realm." He sniffed the air as if it were full of toxic gases.
Carole coughed self-consciously. "Uh, exactly what do you mean by monobrain?"
Professor Philamount exhaled a great hissing breath, collapsing his face like a shrunken apple head. Although extremely impressed, Carole inched herself a few feet farther away.
Seconds later he gulped in mouthfuls of air, inflating his face back to its normal size. "I'm sorry my dear, but as a senior instructor I do expect a high level of ability and understanding from my pupils. I quite forgot that with such an extended gap in your own education, you'd be unaware of such basic information. I can now see that if I don't take at least a modicum of time for explanations, we shall get absolutely nowhere."
He closed his eyes, puffed out his cheeks and scrunched himself down until he looked very much like an anemic bullfrog. His Adam's apple began bobbing up and down his throat like a yo-yo.
Carole didn't know whether to be amused or alarmed, but before she could decide, he let loose with an explosive belch. "Your name is not really Carole Wood, which means that Hal Wood is not your true father!"
"I already knew that. In fact, Wood isn't Hal's last name either. We just use it to stop people from talking. Not that it makes any difference though."
Professor Philamount seemed a trifle disappointed by her response. "And are you also aware that this place is not your true home?"
"Of course. We're just staying here because Hal says we've got to wait." Carole felt her spine go slightly electric.
Philamount tilted his head back and sniffed the air as if still trying to locate the source of the bad odor. "I'm not speaking of this quaint little neighborhood," he said, sweeping his arm about in a great arc, "nor of your porcine abode. I'm speaking of this world, this planet, this very universe. You do not belong here."
Carole felt as if the ground had lurched to one side. "What?"
The professor's lips turned up in a smug little smile. "You actually come from a different world in an entirely different dimension."
"No, that can't be. I'm just an orphan with a few extra, though perfectly normal abilities. They're really nothing special. I'm nothing really special. Other people have them, too. I really am just like everyone else."
"You most certainly are not." Professor Philamount roared. "You are nothing at all like these wretched monobrains. You come from my world and are akin to me."
Carole stared at the freakish creature, sitting before her. How could she in any way be related to him? "I have to go." She rose abruptly.
"So soon, Miss Sylphwood?"
"Yes, I-- What did you call me?"
"Sylphwood. That is your true name. Miss Carole Sylphwood. It is a very prestigious name; one which your parents continue to hold with honor and respect."
"My parents?" Carole sat slowly. "My parents are...alive?"
"Oh my good heavens, yes!"
"I'm not an orphan?"
"Certainly not!"
Carole blinked at the man in disbelief. "They're alive?"
"Very much so. Saw them just the other day, in fact. Your mother was looking perfectly formal, your father extremely bookish."
Carole's ears burned and her face flushed. She jumped to her feet, planted both hands firmly on her hips, she blurted, "So where are they? How come they haven't come to get me? Don't they care? Have you any idea what it's like to be dumped in a ditch? Have you any idea what it's like to not know... To always wonder... To put up with those horrid, pig-slaughtering Murtzes all these years? Have you any idea?"
"No, no, no, it's not like that at all!" Professor Philamount waved his arms about, as if trying to ward off Carole's words. "Your parents have been searching for you. We've all been trying to find you ever since you went missing, ever since The Great Conundrum.
"They've no idea. No one has any idea. I had no idea until just last night. And won't they be relieved, quite ecstatic I should say, when I tell them how very much alive and kicking you are."
"You tell them? Why you? I'll tell them myself."
"Ah, it seems we've already come to the crux of the matter. Ahem, well you see it is precisely because you are currently living in this dimension that you yourself cannot personally tell them; cannot reach them, in fact. But that's not important. What is important is that you and the connector--" Professor Philamount's face took on a quizzical expression. He wriggled around uncomfortably while his fingers burrowed through his hair as if to find some scalp to scratch. "An impasse already. How extraordinary."
"What is?"
"All of this, of course. Your very presence here. Don't you see?" His eyes expanded to the size of saucers. "Oh no, you couldn't possibly, could you?" His eyes shrunk
back to normal and he pulled his fingers from his hair to start them drumming on his knees. "All right, first things first.
"Now then, please sit down Miss Sylphwood, and we'll start at the beginning with the evidence at hand, shall we? As good a place as any, especially since we're in this appalling Monobrain Realm, where seeing must always precede believing. Such a ridiculously backward notion!"
He tugged at his beard and let it snap against his chin with a loud pop. "Now let's see. Before we met the other night did something unique happen to you, a strange sensation, perhaps? Something not altogether pleasant?"
"Well yes, now that you mention it." Carole grudgingly sat on the ground in front of him. "Just before we left the barn I got dizzy and thought I was going to be sick. But it only lasted a few seconds."
"Ah hah! The Dizzies! And only a few seconds you say? Excellent, excellent! Very impressive. Very impressive indeed, considering you've had no formal training at all and this miserable dimension is in a state of complete and random flux."
"The Dizzies?"
"The Dizzies, more formally known as 'The Dizziness of Dimensional Overlap.' Happens to all beginners, especially on their first transdimensional jump." Philamount's eyebrows arched together like a fuzzy suspension bridge spanning his nose. "In fact, it's really the first true test of whether one is equipped with the proper vestibular kinesthetic apparatus--more commonly known as the right stuff--to become a true transdimensional jumper.
"Not all are, you know. No indeed; far less than you might imagine. That's why students at Hub Central refer to their first jump as, 'The Dive of Destiny.' It's a very formal occasion, quite a party, held once a year on the heights of the Celestial Nexus. The entire community attends, and those students who succeed, continue on in their studies, hopefully to graduate one day as fully accredited transdimensional multitaskers."
"And those who don't?" Carole said, totally confused.
"Ah well, those students who fail thereafter affectionately refer to the Celestial Nexus as Point Puke. But most recover within three or four days."
The Lost Witch Page 3
