Lucy felt herself gain control again.
The Don looked confused at the writing, but he elbowed Poppy, encouraging her to solve this final riddle.
“Go on, Dulcinea. Say it, wot.”
The girl stared at the words scratched into the dirt, the fire light illuminating them black against the sand.
“Well,” said Lucy, “come on, Poppy. What’s the answer?”
The girl’s brow furrowed. She bit the inside of her cheek. Her eyes darted back and forth across the words. Panic crept across her face. It started from her eyes, slunk down her cheeks and finished as a nervous twitch in her lips.
“Don’t know,” she admitted, with a worried tone in her voice.
Lucy thought this might be a unique moment in Poppy’s life. “You don’t know?” The meaning of the riddle began to dawn on her. “Don, you try. What does it say?”
The Don gazed at the legend scratched into the dirt. “Well, it says tears and tears, tears and tears, but which is which, doesn’t it? Plain as day, wot!”
“How do you know that?” asked Poppy.
“Eh?” he replied, puzzled.
“Why can’t it say, tears and tears? Or, tears and tears? How can you tell?” Poppy asked.
“That’s the point!” snapped Lucy, at last grasping the meaning of the rhyme. “It’s Wittgenstein! It’s a literary example of Wittgenstein’s ‘“beetle in the box’” thought experiment.”
Both Don Quixote and Poppy looked confused.
“The ‘“beetle in the box”’ experiment,” she began to explain, “is where you have a group of people, and each has a box. Everyone looks inside their box and when questioned about the contents, they all say “beetle.” And from this, Wittgenstein says, you can conclude nothing because you don’t know what the word “beetle” means to each person. You can’t see inside the box to verify what you think they are saying. To one of them, the word “beetle” might mean “egg,” or “books,” or “an off-duty postman,” or “nothing at all.” Wittgenstein says that words without context are meaningless. It represents every person’s brain in real life. So, you can never be sure what anyone is saying is what you think they are saying, because you can’t see inside their head to check.”
Her two companions still seemed a little bamboozled, but she thought she saw the beginnings of understanding in their eyes.
“And this,” said the Don, slowly, “this, is a written example of that idea, because we don’t know what the word T,E,A,R,S means. Each one could mean tears—crying, or it could mean tears—ripping. And we can’t tell because we can’t see inside your head, is that right?”
Lucy nodded, beaming at them.
“So, what’s the answer?” asked Poppy. “Which is which?”
Lucy thought for a moment. What was the answer to Wittgenstein’s ‘“beetle in a box”’ experiment? What was the answer to: tears and tears, tears and tears, which is which? She knew what it meant to her but what did it mean to anyone else? Again, the literal answer was: she couldn’t say for certain. So, how was she to solve this riddle?
One answer was to be like Poppy and assume that no one was like you. Assume that no one has thoughts as you have them and so treat everyone as if they were unconscious robots. The other answer was to be like the Don and assume that everyone did have a thought process like yours and that the word “beetle” would mean the same as it did to you.
She instinctively felt that this was not right. There was something more fundamental as an answer, because in both cases you had to assume. You had to…
“You have to believe,” said Lucy, stunned at the simple answer. “Belief is the answer.”
She heard the final click as the box’s last lock sprang open, and the lid flipped back like an oyster. Sitting, pearl-like, in the heart of the plush interior was the amethyst key.
Lucy’s heart swelled and the coercion spell redoubled its incessant beat. She hadn’t realised how much she had been worrying about the key until she had it back. She had missed it during its incarceration.
Now, its inner purple light spilled from the box. She picked up the key and held it to her eye, seeing once again the tan coloured oil stains, which gyrated inside as if they were living pan-dimensional worms. It felt warm dangling between her fingers. She was very close now—very close indeed.
On with the quest—up and up—to the Falls of Wanda. The coercion spell pounded in her chest.
So close to the end.
She heard the sullen voice of Intuition in her head. I suppose I should congratulate you, Gayle. You’ve got the key back.
You needn’t sound so glum about it.
Yes, I should. Every step you take brings the end of the quest closer, and my eventual doom nearer. The footstep of doom. That’s what you are. And, you’re right, I can’t stop you.
“So, that’s the amethyst key, eh wot?” said the Don, gazing rapturously. “I never thought I’d see that.”
His finger traced the line of his mouth in a manner Lucy found hauntingly familiar.
Go on, said Intuition morosely, ask.
What question?
Intuition sighed in her head. The question you should have asked Conscience.
No, I’m lost.
You once asked Conscience, why does everyone in this world look like you and Talbot? The question you should have asked was: Who do you look like, and who does Talbot look like? Now, ask Poppy the next question.
Lucy’s mind raced as the prophetic cog wheels clicked into place for another answer.
“Poppy, who does he look like?” she asked, indicating the Don.
The girl gave him a flat stare and said, “Looks like my dad.”
“Well, that’s a strange thing because you, little Dulcinea, you look how I imagined my daughter would look—funny coincidence, eh wot?”
Looks like my dad? Lucy thought to herself. The prophetic cog wheels clicked around once more. Click. No, not my dad, not Ethan Gayle—click—because I didn’t look much like him—click. I looked like my mum—click. Kimberly Gayle—click—and she looked like her father—click. Talbot had a big red handkerchief—click. And mum looks like—click—Grandpa Will—click, click, click.
Got the third answer now, Gayle? Worked out who the author is?
Grandpa Will, she thought at Intuition.
Well done, it all adds up now, doesn’t it? All the references to books because…
Grandpa Will loves stories and literature.
All the birds are wrong because…
Grandpa Will could never figure out about habitats for birds even though he loved ornithology.
And everyone looks like each other because, well, your grandfather is not a very good story teller, he finished.
He used to make up bedtime stories and tell them to my mum when she was little, she thought.
Yes, I know, said Intuition, tales about a little girl—a little girl in a blood-red cape.
She was called Poppy Pooh-pah.
That’s right, stories about your mother—renamed Poppy Pooh-pah. And now, with this new adventure, he’s cast you as the hero. You are, Childe Lucy, guardian of the white—because your mother is too old for his stories. And you need this story.
He’s going to tell it to me from his hospital bed, after he fell from the roof, she thought. This is his mind sorting it out, getting the story straight before he tells it.
Yes, that’s why you’re fighting him, explained Intuition. You’re a character in his imagination, but you’re not completely under his control. That’s why you can reason, and are not just a mindless drone. You’re the curious protagonist, like Hamlet, always questioning everything. A, sort of, veto from his own subconscious, trying to make the tale logical.
At least, that’s the truth if this is a story.
Very true, he said, patiently, you have all three paths. Our revelations now are ended. You must choose shortly. And I, for one, hope you will spend forever hanging on that knife-edge because I know of no future fo
r me beyond that choice.
Lucy paused for a moment to take in the full bitterness of Intuition’s speech.
Now, I’m going. I can’t stop your inexorable trip down this path, and I’d rather not see the train that’s coming to squish me. I think I shall try your memories. Who knows, perhaps time will be weird inside your memories, and I can live a little longer.
I don’t feel sorry for you, she lied. You killed Conscience, and you tried to ruin the quest. You would’ve killed me if you could.
If I thought it would do any good, I’d kill you now.
Lucy believed every cold syllable.
I think I shall find a memory of a beach and the sea, he said, his voice dilapidated with resignation. I want to know what the sea sounds like before I die—goodbye, Gayle.
She gave him silence to leave by. She was alone in her head for the first time in she didn’t know how long. It felt empty and hollow and awful, as if a part of herself was missing, like an amputation or when someone you love dies—a sunken, sick hole, ragged around the edges.
The Don, and to some extent, Poppy, looked concerned.
“I say, are you all right? You seem to have come over a bit pallid, wot?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, as she began to cope with her loss.
“Well, little Dulcinea and I were just trying to work out why we look like father and daughter. Can’t wrap our heads around it. Dashed odd.”
She could have answered their question, told them about her Grandfather and his possible relation to the unfolding quest. She could have tried to explain that they were all mere figments of his imagination, but she didn’t. She could have tried to talk about multi-universes, how every possibility was played out somewhere, and so massive coincidences did occur and random chance could explain everything, but she didn’t. Ultimately, she could have mentioned that this could all be cooked up by her own brain in a psychotic break from reality, how this was just her brain’s method of coping with an awful event which had happened to her, but, once again, she couldn’t find the words.
Instead, she stood up and stared out into the black night. The wind screamed around her. The sleety snow began to fall more consistently, making the fire spit and hiss as the sleet melted in its burning heart.
All three riddles down—all three companions used up. Poppy had given her the answers to the riddles. Talbot had given her courage to fight the Tec-heeler in the woods, and Conscience had given her compassion to help the Snippets and Nids. Brains, and heart, and courage. Oh my!
Now, only Poppy remained. Conscience had died at the hands of Intuition—shot through the head. And Talbot had also gone—left because he was a werewolf, but also because he loved Lucy. A love she could not return. It was all a mess.
Her Grandfather, her own imagination or just a massive coincidence? The paths were before her, and her friends lay strewn in her wake. It was unfair, it was terrible, it just was. Here she stood, the footstep of doom, as Intuition had called her, and everywhere was pain. If it was her Grandfather, then he was in pain, having fallen from the roof. If it was her own imagination, she was in pain. And if it was all a coincidence, then her friends were in pain, Conscience was dead and Talbot was lost. No matter the choice, there would be blood and pain. Her own, her Grandfathers or her friends.
She wanted to scream. She felt the icy wind around her, but she was boiling inside, frying in the pain at the agony of her foul choice.
Her own pain, her Grandfather or her friends, oh my! Lions and tiger and bears, oh my! Herself, her Grandfather, her friends, oh my! Lions and tigers and bears!
She closed her eyes. She threw her head to the full moon and the snow and the wind, and she howled. She howled like a lone wolf. She howled for all she was worth. She howled for the lost, the lonely, the broken—the lions, the tigers, the bears—for herself, her Grandfather, her friends. She released a shrieking, pain-filled howl into the ice night as the last of her self-pity left her body in the exorcising.
“I say, what on earth!” exclaimed the Don, almost falling backwards from his log.
Lucy took another long inhalation and howled again into the night.
An answering howl came back, carried on the breeze, the call of like to like; she hoped it was Talbot, but she couldn’t be sure.
She stood at the edge of the firelight, the edge of humanity, and she howled to the wilderness.
“I say, has she lost it?” asked the Don.
Poppy shrugged in an unconcerned way. “Who hasn’t?”
“Well, I haven’t for a start. I’m quite as sane as the next person,” bristled Don Quixote.
Poppy pointed at Lucy. “She is the next person. You’re all mad here. Everyone is insane. I’m the only sane person I’ve ever met. Sanity is just madness for the masses. Put enough stress on a person and the thin veneer of society will scrape away revealing the cheap plywood of insanity. Everyone is one push from craving chocolate and howling at the moon.”
“That is a very dark thought, Dulcinea,” said the Don, edging away.
“Dark world,” said Poppy. “Got any sweets?”
Lucy exhaled. So close—so very, very close.
She knew what she had to do, make all the worlds equal and then choose. Simple.
She would have to return to the other two worlds soon, slip back and set them on an equal footing and then the choice and after—cessation—an ending of a part of her life. Once she chose, the quest would be over. Afterward? She didn’t know. She couldn’t imagine. There was this trial by fire, and then—what?
Once the choice was made, and Lucy Alice Zara Gayle made up her mind, there would be no going back. It would be a watershed. There was never any going back.
Chapter 27 Up and Up
Alice, crawling up and up,
stretched from one to three.
A guard for one,
two be sprung.
Up and up for thee.
Found engraved, anachronistically, on the inside of a
suit of armour belonging to Lord Falcrum after his
victory, and his death, at the Battle of Cantab,
Year After Ice 15099
This bit was, almost certainly, the weirdest part of Lucy’s hitherto bizarre journey. There were three worlds. She’d known about the three realities for a long time, but now she could feel them overlaying each other.
She plodded, through the snow along the never-ending Plains of Cantab with Poppy in tow, and it seemed unreal and flimsy, like a dream. It was as if someone had placed tracing paper over everything and was drawing other real things on it. No, that wasn’t true but it was the best analogy she could come up with.
So, she walked along through the weird, dreamlike, shimmering landscape. She wished Conscience were with her, but he was dead. She wished Talbot were with her, but he too was gone. She even wished Intuition were with her, actually that was a lie, but she did miss him in a strange way. The Don too had left. He’d wandered off one morning to continue his search for Sancho. Now, all that remained were Lucy and Poppy.
Lucy sighed and walked on, and the panorama shifted as if it were a kaleidoscope. Reality faded in and out, an ebb and flow tide of the scrub brush of Cantab and…and…now…what was she seeing being overlaid on the Cantab vista?
She relaxed. There was no point in trying to fight the inevitable weirdness. Cantab, the prism prison, or her hospital room—it made little difference. She knew what she had to do.
The spell in her chest beat onwards—on with the quest—to the Falls of Wanda—up and up.
That was what she had to do: go up. It was all she had been told, and it was enough. She’d spent almost all of her time on the quest worrying about the ultimate meaning of it all, and now that she had her answers, she just let the crazy wash over her and take her to where it would. There was a peaceful freedom in surrendering to the path she was on.
She felt the hard pad of her feet as she walked across the Cantab plains, the slight crunch of the thin layer of snow b
eneath her worn shoes. The grass whisked past her legs. The chilly wind gnawed at her nose, and the skies blackened overhead. The dream-like echoes of the other worlds left after-images in front of her eyes.
The prism, Cantab, or the hospital. Lions and tigers and bears. The prism, Cantab, or the hospital?
For no reason, she focused her thoughts on the hospital and vvvvvvvvwwwwwwwhhhhhhop the world changed. The plains of Cantab faded out to a fuzzy background of line drawings, and the hospital faded into focus.
Lucy blinked, astonished. Her mind raced in panic.
Cantab, Cantab, Cantab, she thought without thinking.
Vvvvvvrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuup, the world changed again.
The hospital dropped away, like a disconnected lift, and the world of the plains took over.
She stumbled, her head spinning.
Poppy looked at her questioningly and then, deciding this event would not lead to her getting any sweets, she shrugged and carried on walking.
Lucy rubbed the back of her head and breathed out in a long huff to throw off the feeling of nausea. Cool air rushed into her lungs, and the dizzy feeling passed.
She could control it. She could control moving between the worlds. It was just as her father had said. She brought her mind to bear on the worlds again.
She focused: the hospital.
The world began to shimmer around her, vvvvrrrruuuuuuup.
The hospital coalesced, the plains burned away, her mind raced in the new surroundings.
She lay flat on her back under a cold, starched blanket. There was a tightness around her wrists and ankles. They were bound with Velcro strapping to the bed.
Her father’s words came back to her. Make the worlds equal, Lucy.
Up and up, she thought to herself. However, being strapped to the bed was an inauspicious start to “‘going up.”
She pulled at the wrist restraint of her left hand. It moved slightly but not enough to be called loose. She pulled and twisted, twisted and pulled and nothing. The Velcro held firm, clamped around her wrist like an over-protective mother’s grip. She let her palm lie flat upon the bed and felt the sharp spike beneath her hand.
Ravens and Writing Desks: A Metaphysical Fantasy Page 36
