by Starr Meade
Dylan’s father came into view once more. He reached for Dylan, who reached back, but their fingers touched only empty air. In Dylan’s dream, he walked for hours, maybe days, in the same relentless, solitary, silent circles. Sometimes, when he could no longer stand the silence, he would try calling out again, but no one could ever hear him. For a while, he talked to himself, just to have something to listen to. His voice sounded so strange in the deafening stillness that he soon gave that up.
At last, in despair, Dylan heard himself say, “I’m going to be all alone forever.” Suddenly, he was no longer in the crowd, but watching again from above. Only this time, he could see himself down there, still walking alone. Mr. Smith spoke again. “Don’t worry, Dylan,” he said, soothingly, “it’s just a dream.” Then his voice developed an ever-so-slight edge to it. “But it’s a dream that shows you what real life is like. In real life, every person cares first of all about his or her own pointless little life. Any interest real people have in each other is only on the surface. It’s just to be polite, to mask the fact that all that really matters is what I’m doing, what I want. People tell each other all their thoughts and feelings, but, in the end, no one really cares. Everyone is too busy thinking about his or her own concerns to really listen well to someone else.
“You should have been content with your vacations in Holiday, young man,” the voice added. “Everyone’s nice to each other while they’re there, and all this ugliness doesn’t show. If there is a real Holiday, you can’t live there. Neither can anyone else. Remember the first thing on that list? Look out for others’ interests, not just your own. Do you see any of that going on down there? Did you see any of that on your way here today? And what about you? What about you and choosing sides for baseball, you and an old man who moves too slowly, you and your parents at church on Sundays? Forget it, young man, there can’t be a real Holiday. No one fits the requirements for living there.”
When Dylan awoke, he felt like he had never slept. “Good morning,” said Clare. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
Dylan did not respond to Clare’s greeting. He merely said, “I’m going home.”
“What?” asked Clare. “Why? What about Holiday?”
“There can’t be any such place,” Dylan said flatly. “There aren’t any people who would meet the requirements for living there. And even if there were people who met the require ments, I wouldn’t be one of them.” He pulled the list out of his pocket. He looked it over once more and snorted in disgust at himself. “I don’t meet any of these requirements, let alone all of them.”
Clare did not know how to answer him. Then Missy’s clear, sweet voice chimed in. “I’m not listening in on purpose,” she said, “but it’s a pretty small park, you know. It’s hard not to hear everything that’s said. I’m not sure you’re reading very carefully, young man,” she said to Dylan. “Do you see anything on that list in your hand that says a person is required to do all these things before he can be authorized for Holiday?”
“Sure, it says right here,” and Dylan read from the paper, “Authorized Personnel will look out for the interests of others, pay back evil for good . . .” and Dylan went on to read the whole list.
When he had finished, Missy asked, “Did you read the whole paper?”
“Yes,” Dylan answered.
“Well, I didn’t hear anything about requirements for being authorized, did you?”
“Yes,” Dylan replied impatiently, “it says ‘Authorized Personnel will—”
Missy interrupted. “Don’t read it all again. Pay attention to what you’re reading. All it says is, ‘Authorized Personnel will’ do those things. The question is: will they do them in order to become authorized? Or will they do those things once they are authorized?”
Dylan looked again at the paper in his hand and realized she had a point. “Let me tell you a thing or two about the Founder,” Missy continued. “He knows what people are like. He knows it much better than people themselves know it.
That’s why everyone’s first trip to Holiday includes a stroll through those parts of town you passed through yesterday. He wants the travelers themselves to see that there is nothing about them that makes them good candidates for authorization. If anyone ever is authorized for Holiday, it’s because the Founder is just good enough to authorize them, that’s all.”
Dylan felt the faintest twinges of renewed hope. “I don’t get it,” he said. “If that’s right, then what’s the point of this list at all?”
“For one thing, it’s a reminder,” Missy explained. “The Emperor does indeed have his list of requirements for what his subjects must do and be. But they’ve so hopelessly botched things that none of them could ever meet those requirements. The Founder not only paid what they owed the Emperor, he also offered himself to the Emperor as the one who would meet all those requirements for them.
“Then, the list also tells you what authorized personnel will be,” Missy explained patiently. “The Founder doesn’t leave people the way they are; he changes them. There are none who fit that list before he authorizes them, but once they’re authorized, they become, little by little, what that list describes. And there you have another good reason why people hang me, Missy Mistletoe, in every part of Holiday! Its authorized personnel were reconciled to their Emperor, and they were reconciled to each other.”
“So it’s really not about me meeting a list of requirements?” Dylan said. (You may think it was taking him a long time to get the point, but the idea was such surprising good news to him that he almost felt he must have misunderstood.)
“No, dear,” Missy said with deliberate patience, “it’s all about the Founder. Now, you two need to eat some breakfast and get on your way. You have places to go and things to do.”
“And people to meet,” Dylan added. “Do you think we’ll find the Founder soon?” For as much as Dylan wanted to see the real Holiday, and as badly as he needed the Founder’s authorization in order to do that, he had begun to want to find the Founder for his own sake, just to meet this wonderful hero who kept showing up in every Holiday story.
“You don’t find the Founder; he finds you,” Missy answered, in those same words Dylan had heard several times before.“He’s not just the Founder; he’s the Finder too.” Only when Missy said them in her sweet clear voice, they sounded serious and exciting.
“Where should we go?” Clare asked just as Dylan was saying, “What should we do next?”
Missy laughed her tinkling laugh. “Breakfast first,” she in-sisted. “I know it’s what your mothers would want. Then, go back out the gate and turn at the corner. You’ll find yourself in the Village of Holiday, where the candlemaker has his shop. I’m sure you’ll find him more than helpful.”
Lost in the Dark
Clare’s anxiety about leaving the park to go back to the streets where ill will flowed so freely proved unfounded. No sooner had she and Dylan turned the corner, as Missy had said, than they found themselves in a picturesque village street. Homey, inviting shops lined the narrow lane. Flowers smiled from window boxes. Delicious odors floated from bakery doors to tickle their noses. “Now we’re on the right track,” Dylan announced.“This is beginning to be like what we could see of Holiday.” “
This must be the outskirts of the city,” Clare agreed. “Everything’s ‘Holiday Village’ this or that. There’s Holiday Village Flowers, Holiday Village Toys, and, mmm, Holiday Village Bakery.” Clare drew in a deep breath filled with the fragrance of baking bread.
“Well, then, Holiday Village Candles must be around here somewhere,” Dylan said. They continued past the Holiday Village Gift Shop, Holiday Village Home Décor, and the Holiday Village Café. Fresh fruit stands, hardware stores, bookstands, and clothing shops—Holiday Village had it all!
But where was the candle shop? As the cousins walked down the main street, the shops became fewer and fewer and were finally replaced by farm fields. “We must have missed it,” Dylan said, and they
returned the way they had come.
“Maybe it’s on a side street,” Clare suggested.
“Maybe,” Dylan replied, “but I thought I looked down every one we passed. They didn’t seem to have anything but houses.” Dylan lit up. “Maybe that’s it. Maybe the candle shop is in someone’s house.”
The cousins went back and walked up and down each side street. They found nothing but cute little houses in cute little yards—no shops at all. So they walked all the way down the main street again, peering carefully at every sign and into every store window. No candle shop.
“I guess we’ll have to ask someone,” Clare said.
“There was a stand back there that said ‘Visitor’s Information,’” Dylan said. Back they went to look. Dylan studied the map posted at the stand. Every shop was listed and numbered in the margin, with the numbers placed on the map. Pointing to the candle shop’s number on the map, Dylan said, “That’s funny. I’m sure we’ve been by there, but we didn’t see a candle shop. I guess we’ll just have to go look again.”
One more time, Dylan led the way back. Clare saw Holiday Hats, a shoe store, and a pet shop. No candle store. “Hey! Here’s a little sign!” called Dylan, who had been searching carefully. He pointed to a sign in the shape of an arrow. The sign was not as high as Dylan’s knee. A bush partially hid it.
“No wonder we missed it!” said Clare. “But what does it mean? I don’t see a candle shop that direction either.” The sign was on the corner of a street and seemed to be pointing at Holiday Hats on the corner.
“Maybe there’s something behind Holiday Hats,” Dylan suggested. “Maybe that’s what it means.” He was already moving off around the corner to see. Once around the corner, Dylan and Clare discovered a narrow winding alley. Another small arrow-shaped sign pointed down the alley to “Candles.”
“Odd place for a candle shop,” Clare muttered, following Dylan down the alley and around a turn. That brought them face to face with a brick wall. The alley angled off in another direction. Then it twisted, and turned again. Clare chuckled. “It’s better than a maze!” she said.
They continued down the alley, twisting, turning, winding. Each change of direction forced Dylan’s eyes to work a little harder to be able to see. After several minutes of increasing darkness, he said, “Why is it so dark?”
“Because it winds around so much,” Clare answered. “All the walls block out the light from the street.”
“But what about the light from the sky?” Dylan asked. “There wasn’t any kind of roof over the alley. There should be light from the sky. It wasn’t even noon when we came in, but it’s as dark as night in here.”
“That’s right,” said Clare glancing up. “I was thinking we came in under a roof, but we didn’t. Why is it so dark? I can hardly see.”
The two went on in silence for a few minutes. Dylan’s head had begun to hurt from staring so intensely into darkness. He had been walking very slowly, to keep from tripping or from bumping into anything, and now he stopped altogether. “I can’t see a thing,” he confessed.
From what seemed far away, he faintly heard Clare’s startled answer. “Dylan, where are you?”
“Where are you?” he answered, wondering how she could have wandered so far from him in such a narrow alley. In the end, Dylan had to keep calling to Clare while he groped his way through the darkness in the general direction of her answering voice. Even when he had finally drawn close enough to her to touch her, he could not make out her form in the dark.
Clare clutched at Dylan’s arm. “I’m scared,” she said. “I’ve never seen darkness like this before, not even in the Cave. You can feel this darkness, like it’s pressing down on us. It seems like if you stayed in here long enough, it would crush you. I think we should go back.”
Dylan shook his head, then realized that was pointless since Clare could not see his head. “No,” he said, “it was really scary in the Cave and we wanted to go back, but that turned out okay. It was just part of getting to the Forest of Life. The sign pointed into the alley, so I’m sure we’re doing the right thing. All we have to do is get back to the wall, then feel our way along it to the end of the alley—and the candle shop.” Abruptly, Dylan returned to the subject that was puzzling him. “Clare, how did we get so far apart when this alley is so narrow? Anyway, it was narrow. . . .” His voice trailed off into a puzzled, unspoken question as he inched his way forward, one arm outstretched (Clare held on to his other one), feeling for the wall. His hand met nothing but empty darkness.
“Here,” Dylan said, “hold my hand instead. Use your other hand to feel for the wall. It’s got to be right here somewhere!” Dylan and Clare moved in ever widening circles, both of them feeling all around them for the wall. Five minutes passed, ten, maybe fifteen—no wall yet. “This is crazy,” Dylan mumbled. “It was just an alley. There were buildings on both sides. And it was morning on a sunny day. Now the walls are gone, we’re in a wide open space, and it’s pitch dark.” He was silent for a moment. Then Clare felt his fingers go cold, and he asked, “Clare, which direction were we going?”
“I don’t know,” Clare replied in a voice so small that it did indeed sound as if the darkness had crushed it.
Without a word, Dylan and Clare began to walk again. They felt that they could not just sit there in the darkness. Trying to get somewhere was better than doing nothing. So they walked, feeling their way with their hands in front of them, the way blind people might. Before each step, they felt the ground in front of them with their feet to be sure of it. The cousins might as well have had no eyes at all, for all the use they were. Even as a small child, Dylan had never been afraid of the dark. But Clare was right; this was a different darkness than any he had ever known before. It seemed to have a life of its own. Dylan felt that the darkness knew they were there and that it did not wish them well. Just as cold has a way of creeping into your bones, so it seemed to Dylan that this darkness wanted to get inside of him, to be a part of him—or to absorb him into itself.
The cousins had inched along in the crushing darkness for what felt like hours when Dylan noticed that his eyes had begun to play tricks on him. He could see what appeared to be a tiny pinprick of red light. Even though he realized that this was just one of those spots your eyes see sometimes when they’re closed or when it’s very dark, he stared at the tiny red dot. At least it was something to look at. Suddenly, he felt Clare’s hand tighten in his own. “Dylan! There’s a light!” she whispered in excitement. “Or something.”
“Or something” was right. The children had quickened their pace. As they approached the light, however, they saw not exactly a light, but a patch of deep red color, faintly glowing. Without saying anything to each other, both Dylan and Clare slowed their steps. Somehow, the red glow did not seem much friendlier than the intense dark. Soon the children could see that the glow came from a torch held in someone’s hand. Their hearts sank when they recognized the torchbearer. It was Mr. Smith. Neither of them trusted his pleasant face or his smooth voice any longer.
“Oh, my, look who’s here,” he said now, as though he were surprised to see them. Dylan and Clare both felt sure he had been looking for them. “This darkness is much too dangerous for you to be wandering about in,” he continued. “Were you looking for something?”
“We were looking for the wall,” Dylan answered, coldly. As he spoke, he looked around by the torch’s glow. There was no wall to be seen.
“Well,” the man smiled agreeably, “of course you didn’t come in here in the first place to find a wall. What were you looking for when you came in?”
“The candle shop,” Clare replied.
“Wanted some light, did you? Well, this is your lucky day. I’m going to show you that life in here, yes, in this very darkness, can be so glorious, you’ll never want another candle. If you’ll follow me, I’ll lead you to some folks who will show you what I mean.”
“I don’t trust him,” Clare whispered to Dylan.
“I know, but what choice do we have? Maybe the people he’s talking about will know how to get to the candle shop. Let’s just go see,” Dylan whispered back.
So the children set off in the eerie glow of Mr. Smith’s torch.
As they walked, he chattered good-naturedly. “I think you’ll like the D Der’s,” he began. “That’s what I call the people I’m going to introduce you to. They’re very sensible. You’ll like that about them. They’re able to look at things realistically, and then choose the best course. And they’re always happy. The D Der’s know how to enjoy life. They don’t miss a thing!”
As he chattered on, Dylan and Clare became aware of noise up ahead. It sounded like a party. They heard voices, music, and laughter. The closer they got to the noise, however, the less they liked it, and their initial relief at hearing human voices faded. Dylan and Clare realized that while many of the voices laughed, others cursed. The laughter itself, lacking any note of joy, contained a mocking, jeering ring. The music had a sinister pulse to it. Dylan felt Clare tug at his hand. He stopped.
“Hold it,” Dylan said. Mr. Smith stopped. Maybe it was a shadow from the flicker of the torch, or maybe a trace of impatience flitted across his face. He still sounded pleasant, though, as he said, “What is it?”
“Who did you say these people are?” Dylan asked.
The man chuckled. “Oh, I just said I call them D Der’s. Those are just initials, you know.”
“Well, what do they stand for?” Dylan wanted to know.
“Darkness Dwellers.” The man said it quickly, and hurried on. “They are so good at making the best of things, you can’t imagine. They’ve made such a nice place—a nice real place, not like a pretend Holiday. They have so much fun! They enjoy every possible pleasure. You can’t help but enjoy life with the D Der’s. They’ll show you how to have a good time—a great time, every day. You’ll never—”
