by Starr Meade
From the very beginning, the trail proved to be much harder even than it had looked. For one thing, it was terribly steep. (Clare did not like to think about going back down. What would keep you from running or sliding all the way?) Every few minutes, both children had to stop to get their breath, and muscles in their legs protested the unaccustomed strain. Sometimes, the trail would disappear under a pile of rocks, and the hikers would have to clamber up and over huge boulders the best they could until the trail appeared again on the other side. Other times, the trail crossed great flat surfaces of slanted, slippery stone or flows of small, loose rocks that could easily shift. Dylan would glance down and wonder briefly what would happen if the rocks began to move under his feet.
All the while, the trail continued to wind around and around the mountain, always leading higher. The road down at the bottom appeared first as a wide scarf, later as a slender belt, and finally as the thinnest of ribbons. At that point, Holiday Village itself, and Holiday, right next to it, were tiny toy towns alone in a great valley. “Let’s take a break,” Clare panted, and Dylan nodded, out of breath himself. They went far enough from the path to get under the scant shade of a large boulder and sat down.
“It’s hot!” Dylan said, holding his sweaty shirt out away from his skin, hoping to catch any breeze that might happen by. None did.
“I need some water,” Clare said, reaching to open the backpack Dylan carried.
Dylan stiffened. “Oh no,” he groaned, “I forgot to fill the bottle back at the candle shop. I don’t think there’s much left.”
Clare pulled out the bottle. Dylan was right. Only a few mouthfuls remained in the bottom. “Of course, I didn’t feel all that thirsty before,” Dylan said, “but now I do.”
They each drank a swallow, leaving the tiniest bit more for one last drink. Once they had caught their breath, they began the climb anew. Of course, the closer to the top they climbed, the harder it grew. The path became ever steeper, the sun beat ever hotter, their clothing became ever wetter with perspiration, and their legs began to tremble. And still they had more trail ahead—the hardest part of it at that.
The cousins paused to rest again, but this time there was nothing big enough to give shade anywhere near. They stood on the trail with the hot sun beating down on them and warming the air they were gasping. “Do you think this is worth it?” Dylan said, more to himself than to Clare. “To talk to some bells? There must be plenty of other people in Holiday that could tell us about the Founder.”
“Well,” Clare said, almost reluctantly. (The thought of stopping was attractive.) “The candlemaker said we should do this. And remember, he said it’s possible to get to the top; you just have to really want it.”
“That’s just it,” Dylan answered. “I’m beginning to wonder if I want it this much,” but he started back up the path again. After going only a few more steps, Dylan suddenly stopped. Clare, who had been watching her feet on the trail, almost bumped into him. Startled, she looked up to see why he had stopped.
The children had rounded a corner. There, right in front of them, just at the very edge of the trail, stood a tree, the only one they had seen on their hike. It was not a large tree, but it was taller than a person and its branches reached out and provided shade. Under the tree, taking up every inch of the shadow it threw, stood a wooden booth, painted bright blue. On either side of the booth, a canvas chair, well-shaded, hung from the tree. Over the booth, a banner read, “R&R REST AND REFRESHMENT” and underneath it, in smaller letters, “SEEKING? COME IN HERE.” On the counter, tall glasses waited next to pitchers of iced liquids.
The first reaction of both of the cousins was relief. They could taste, they could feel, the icy liquids going down their throats. But they had not been imagining this for even one full moment when they saw the problem. They knew the man who sat behind the counter. It was Mr. Smith. “Welcome, welcome,” he called out, beaming. “Don’t you look like you could use a break?”
The Bell Choir
We’d love a break, and a drink especially,” Dylan answered Mr. Smith, eying the sweating pitchers with longing. “But what’s the catch? We know there’s a catch.”
“No catch, no catch,” Mr. Smith replied. “Just come on up, sit down, settle in, stay as long as you like. We’ll meet your needs, and we’ll make no demands.”
“No demands?” Dylan asked with suspicion, reaching for a glass in spite of himself.
“We just want you to be comfortable,” the man assured them. He took a pitcher to pour water into the glass Dylan held. “You can stay here forever if you want and we won’t ask anything of you. Or you can go back down.” The pitcher was over Dylan’s glass and the first drop of cool water hung from its lip, ready to fall.
“And up?” Dylan asked. “We can keep going up when we’re ready, too, right?”
Mr. Smith straightened the pitcher and jerked it away from the glass Dylan held. “Not up,” he said. “This R&R is intended for those who want to stay put or for those going down. Only.”
“That’s mean!” Clare cried, since Dylan was so startled by the sudden disappointment that he was speechless.
“Me, mean?” the little man protested. “Whoever told you to go up this mountain was mean! I’m offering you shade, rest, refreshments; I’m not mean. What do you think you’ll find when you get up there? Some bells, that’s all. And what are they going to do? Ring, if anything. How is that worth such a tough climb on such a hot day? You can stay right here and have all you need.
“Not to mention,” Mr. Smith continued, reaching down under the counter of his booth, “if it’s music you want, check this out.” He pulled up a small loudspeaker and set it on the counter. “We have songs about the Founder right here. You don’t need to go all the way up there for bells. I promise you’ll like these songs—all about the Founder and how good he makes you feel and how much you want to find him. And all the while, you can be sitting right here in a comfortable, shaded chair—”and he gestured at the swinging chairs—“sipping on your favorite beverage.”
Dylan, angry in his disappointment over the drink, muttered, “You’re pitiful.” He turned to Clare. “Come on, Clare, let’s go,” he said and started on his way again. Clare followed. Behind them, they heard the clinking of ice cubes as Mr. Mr.Smith poured a drink. They heard a noisy slurp, followed by a long “aaahh” of satisfaction. A switch clicked and music began to play.
Dylan said nothing. He fixed his eyes on the steep incline ahead. Crunching the gravel underfoot, his feet marched up the trail, his legs moving up, down, up, down in a steady rhythm. Clare found it difficult to keep up. Dylan was angry. She was sure of that, but she was glad to see the difference his anger made in his approach to this last stretch of the trail. It seemed she had left behind at the blue booth a weary, wilting cousin, ready to give up. In his place, a determined hiker now led the way.
Still winding its way around and around to the top, the trail turned another corner. From here, the music from the radio no longer reached them. Clare, who had fallen farther and farther behind, finally called out, “Dylan! Wait for me!” Dylan stopped and waited for Clare to catch up. They both stood and panted.
“Sorry,” Dylan said. “Guess I was mad. I am so tired of that guy!”
“That’s okay,” Clare said. “It sure gave you fresh energy!”
“You know,” Dylan said, “I don’t know why it’s so important to that man to keep us from finding the Founder and getting authorized for Holiday, but I do know this. The more he tries to stop us, the more determined I am that it must be worth whatever it takes.” Dylan pointed ahead, up the trail. “Look, I think we’re almost there. I bet that corner up there is the last one, and the trail after it goes straight to the top. One more big push and we’re there.”
So they pushed on, and a very big push it proved to be. The trail leading to that last curve in the road was so steep that Clare felt she was walking straight up. Once she rounded the curve, she realized though, that
, no, that hadn’t been straight up; this was. A solid wall of rock, several feet taller than her head, met her. She might have thought it impassible, if it weren’t that Dylan had already started up. That’s when she saw the small foot and handholds scattered about on the rock face. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered, and started up after Dylan. She climbed up cautiously, and when she had used the last crack for placing a hand, she found Dylan’s hand, reaching down from the top, to help her. Clare took it, scrambled up after him, and stood panting, knees and arms trembling.
Here at the top, a delicious breeze played with their hair and tugged at their clothing. Dylan and Clare turned to face it, letting it dry their perspiration. The top of the mountain was about the size of a small yard for a house. The cousins were surprised to see that it was covered with a lush green lawn. (I wonder who waters it, Dylan thought, and how he waters it.) At the opposite side of the lawn stood the little church, its white, wooden walls weathered, but in good repair. A bell tower rose up from its rear wall. Through the open front door, a shady interior invited entrance.
“I hope there’s some water in there,” Clare said.
“Let’s go see,” said Dylan.
They crossed the lawn in a few strides and stepped through the door, finally finding relief from the merciless sun. The church’s windows were open and the same delicious breeze they had enjoyed outside blew through the interior. Nothing other than windows decorated the wooden walls. A few roughly fashioned benches sat on the bare concrete floor. Off to the side, a doorway opened onto stairs leading to the bell tower. But the thing that first caught the cousins’ attention was the drinking fountain sitting in the back corner of the room. Its cooling unit hummed happily.
“Oh, yes,” Clare breathed with relief, and hurried across for a drink. She was very thirsty, so while Dylan waited for his turn, he had time to wonder how a drinking fountain could be in such a remote spot—and with an electric cooling unit, even!
When Clare had finished and Dylan stepped up for his drink, he saw a small plaque on the side of the fountain. It read, “Courtesy of the Founder.” Of course, Dylan thought, I should have known. He bent his head and drank what was surely the coolest, freshest water he had ever tasted. Whatever the man at the blue booth had been giving away, it could not have been as good as this.
When Dylan had drunk all he wanted, he straightened to find Clare already through the door leading to the bell tower, her foot poised on the first step. He crossed the room to her, and, Clare in the lead, they climbed up the stairs. The stairs wound round and round, up the tower, and came out on a wooden platform at the very top. The walls here were broken up by large openings, windows with no glass in them. The breeze that had blown gently through the church downstairs, gusted through these windows, causing some swaying among the bells that hung in two rows from beams in the very top of the peaked tower. On one end of each row hung the largest bells. The bells grew progressively smaller down the rows until, at the opposite ends, hung the smallest ones.
The middle-sized bell right in the middle of the front row swayed more than any of the others, so that a slight ringing was actually coming from it. Dylan thought that was strange. He was about to say, “I thought bells were rung by people who pulled ropes,” but as he opened his mouth to say it, Clare held up her hand for silence, with a listening expression on her face. Dylan closed his mouth again and listened. Then he heard it too. The bell was actually ringing words. “All right, everyone,” it was saying. “When the wind picks up again, we’ll take it from the top, all together this time. Do just like we did it when we rehearsed in sections, and it will be perfect. And altos, remember, stay with the basses, and don’t let the tenors get drowned out.”
The wind had actually subsided, though, so this little speech was followed by an expectant silence. After several minutes of it, Dylan ventured to say, “Excuse me—uh,” (what do you call a talking bell? he wondered), “Mr.—Conductor?”
This seemed to suit the talking bell just fine, because he immediately responded. “Yes?”
“I don’t want to interrupt your rehearsal or anything—” Dylan began.
“Don’t worry,” the bell interrupted, matter-of-factly. “I won’t let you. When the wind picks up, no matter what we’re talking about, I will ignore you and we will rehearse. There’s so much left to practice, and we must take advantage of every minute.”
Dylan hesitated. “But go on,” the bell said. “The wind’s not blowing hard enough right now, so talk away. Just don’t be offended when I cut you off.”
“Well,” Dylan said quickly, “it was the candlemaker who sent us up here. He said you could tell us more about the Founder of Holiday. See, I’ve been looking for the Founder so I could get authorized to go into Holiday and to come back whenever I want, and I would still like to do that. But the more I learn about the Founder, the more I think I’d like to get to know him—just to get to know him. So—are you able to tell us about the Founder?”
“My dear young man,” the bell replied, “that’s what we do. That’s why we ring. We are the Holiday music and all our music is about the Founder. Have you not noticed the music when you take your Holiday vacations?”
Dylan remembered attending church with his parents when they vacationed in what he had thought was the real Holiday. He remembered how heartily everyone sang then, not like normal times at home. He remembered how he had thought that there must be something special about Holiday music.
“Yes,” Dylan said, out loud. “I have noticed, and I’ve wondered why it doesn’t last when the vacation’s over.”
“Because, of course,” the bell replied, “most of the people are just that—they’re vacationers. They’re not authorized and they haven’t met the Founder. Since true Holiday music is all about the Founder, how can they keep on singing it with any kind of feeling if they don’t know him?”
Dylan would have said something in reply, but, suddenly, the bell said, “Excuse me, young man,” and called out, “All right, everyone, on three!” It was then that Dylan noticed that the wind had picked up. If he had not been engaged in the unusual activity of speaking with a bell, he would certainly have noticed the wind, because it blew so hard that he had to brace himself to keep from being pushed backward by it. The bells began to ring. They rang in concert, each ringing its own individual part, but all together creating a true melody, like a choir. They rang gently at first, and over the top of their song the children could hear the voice of the conductor bell. “Right here sopranos, stronger, stronger, now smoothly—laaa-tum-tum- tum-dum-de-daaa-dum-de-da.” As the wind blew more and more forcefully, the voices of the bells rose in crescendo. Then the wind gradually subsided, and the song grew softer, softer, and whispered to a close.
All was still. Dylan and Clare felt the need to show their appreciation, but applause did not seem quite appropriate. “That was beautiful,” Clare said softly, her eyes shining, just as Dylan said, “Wow! Very nice.”
“Hm. Yes, well,” the conductor bell began, sounding unconvinced, “it was better. But we still have work to do. Altos, what did I tell you about staying with the basses? You can’t go running ahead like that or it just won’t work!”
Suddenly, a tiny little jingle bell, dislodged by one of the great gusts of wind, fell onto the floor from the window ledge. It hit with a small bounce, then rolled across the floor, jingling all the way. The middle bell sighed an exasperated, “Oh!” and Clare was certain that a suppressed giggle ran through the rows of other bells. “Young man,” the middle bell said to Dylan, “would you please pick up that disgusting thing and throw it out the window? I don’t know why Holiday visitors insist on bringing those silly, tinny-sounding things up here. They are just not music!” Dylan had stopped to pick up the jingle bell. He held it in his hand, looking down at it. “Young man, please,” the conductor bell said firmly, “out the window.” Dylan shrugged and obeyed. He tossed the jingle bell out the window.
“Thank you,” said the middl
e bell, and his voice sounded friendlier than it had up until now. “What were we saying? Oh, yes, music and the Founder—it’s all about him, you know. That’s why there’s so much of it in Holiday, and that’s why it doesn’t last when vacationers leave. If they don’t really know him, what reason would they have for making music?”
“I know what you’re going to say,” Dylan began cautiously, “but—you wouldn’t know where I could find the Founder, would you?”
The bell’s only answer was to hum for pitch. The wind, back up again although not as forcefully, caught the bells and they sang together softly, “You don’t find the Founder, he finds you; he’s not just the Founder, he’s the Finder too.” When the short song had ended, the bell added, “But here’s what you can do. Spend the night up here on the mountaintop. The grass outside is very soft and comfortable, and you’ll find some provisions and some blankets in the closet downstairs, left by the Founder, of course.” (Of course, Dylan thought.) “The stars come down so much closer to this mountaintop than they do anywhere else. They know about the Founder. I don’t know that they’d be willing to speak with you. But if they would, you’d be able to hear them here better than anywhere else. Oops, got to go. Here comes the wind again. Everyone, from the top of the page.”
What page? Dylan wondered. Then Clare tugged at his sleeve, and he saw that she was moving down into a sitting position on the floor, so the walls would protect her from the wind. He sat down with her, their backs against the wall, and they listened to the wonderful music of the bells.
