by Starr Meade
Dylan and Clare remained in the bell tower listening to the snatches of song that came and went as the wind rose and fell. Occasionally, when the wind subsided, they would stand up and move around the wooden platform to stretch their legs. Finally, as the shadows lengthened and the wind blew more chill, they went back down the bell tower stairs.
“I’m really hungry!” Dylan observed. “It seems like ages since we last ate—when was that, anyway?”
Clare thought. So much had happened. “It must have been in the alley, on the way to the candlemaker’s shop,” she answered. “That was a while ago! I’m hungry too. I wonder what’s in that closet the bell mentioned.”
They hurried to the back of the church and opened the closet door. The fragrance of fresh baked bread floated out. A basket of golden crusted rolls, their tops shiny with a thin coating of butter, sat on a small table. “Those look good,” Dylan said, “but they’ve got to be hard as rocks. Who knows how long they’ve been there. And they’re not even wrapped in anything.”
“Don’t be silly,” Clare replied. “Smell that! Stale bread doesn’t smell like that.” And she reached out and took a roll. “It’s still warm!” she announced. “These rolls are fresh out of the oven!”
“Well, then that means . . . ” Dylan began, and stopped, looking all around as if he expected to see the provider of the bread nearby. No one could possibly hide in the church, tiny as it was, and the cousins could see the entire mountaintop from the window. With no explanation, Dylan bolted to the door and dashed across the grass on the top of the mountain and over to the place where they had come up on the trail. He leaned over the edge, searching the mountainside with his eyes. Clare could see that he did not find what he wanted because, after a moment, he straightened and walked slowly back to the church. He kept looking all around as he walked. Dylan reentered the church. “The bell said the food is provided by the Founder,” he explained. “Which doesn’t necessarily mean he brought it himself, but someone had to bring it. And it must have been in the last few minutes, if the bread’s still warm. How can that be? Wouldn’t we have seen someone?”
Clare swallowed the piece of bread she was chewing. While waiting for Dylan, she had eaten half the roll she held. “Seems like it,” she agreed. “But there’s nowhere to hide up here. The more we learn about the Founder, the more amazing he sounds. But I thought you were so hungry—have a roll while they’re still hot.”
Dylan took a roll and absentmindedly bit it. The roll’s flavor startled him, and for a moment he forgot the puzzle of where the bread had come from and studied the roll itself. “That is good,” he agreed. “That may be the best bread I’ve ever tasted,” and he took another bite. “The Founder obviously knows we’re here and he obviously knows we’re trying to find him. It’s almost like he’s following us!”
Clare shook her head firmly. “No, it’s not like he’s following us. He’s going ahead of us. We’re following him. Think about it,” she continued. “You said his voice called you out of the cave, and it was actually your name he called. Then, when we got to the park where Missy Mistletoe lives, and you’d lost your visitor’s pass, he had left one for you. It had your name on it; it wasn’t for just anybody. Plus he’d paid the fine you owed for losing the first one. He’s going ahead of us.”
Dylan nodded slowly. He took another bite, and chewed thoughtfully. “But these rolls were put here in the last few minutes. If he had been here and put them in the closet before we got here, they wouldn’t still be warm—we were up in that bell tower a long time.”
“That’s true,” Clare agreed. “Well, then, sometimes he goes ahead of us, sometimes he follows us.”
“But why?” Dylan asked. “He must know all about us. He must know we want to be authorized so we can come and go in Holiday whenever we like. Why doesn’t he just stop and let us catch up to him? Or why didn’t he stay when he brought this bread?” A shadow passed over Dylan’s face. “You don’t think he’s just playing with us, do you?” he asked, and as soon as he said it, he knew the answer to his own question. He shook his head firmly. “No, he’s not like that. I don’t know why, but I’m sure he isn’t.” Clare felt the same certainty. “I don’t know what he’s doing, and I don’t know why he’s doing it, but I feel sure that whatever he does, it’s got to be right. Or he wouldn’t do it.”
“Right,” Clare agreed. “Now how about if we go sit down and actually eat a meal, instead of just standing here gulping down bread? Look, here are some of the most perfect peaches I’ve ever seen.” Clare held them up. “And chunks of two different kinds of cheese to go with the bread. And some hard-boiled eggs—he even remembered the salt. And,” Clare held up this final crowning touch, “two chocolates for each of us, and do they ever look good!”
The cousins carried the food out to the front lawn and sat on the grass, in the last rays of the setting sun. Just before Dylan began to eat, he paused and spoke very earnestly. “I don’t know what he’s doing, and I don’t know why he’s doing it,” he repeated. “But Clare, I think the most horrible thing in the whole world would be to get to the end of this four-day visit and never have met the Founder.”
Winter Wasteland
Dylan woke, startled. Had morning already come? Had he slept through his chance to speak to the stars about the Founder? As his drowsy mind cleared, a gentle breeze touched Dylan’s arm with the unmistakable feel of outside air in the deepest night. It even smelled late. Reassured, Dylan realized that he had only thought day was dawning because the sky shone so brightly. The light came, however, not from a soon-to-rise sun, or from a full moon, but from countless stars, all of them nearer than Dylan had ever known stars to be and all of them very bright. “Clare,” he whispered, in the same tone you would use in a church service when you really must say something, but it would be irreverent to speak right out loud. “Wake up. The stars are out.”
Clare woke immediately and sat up. Then both children rose to their feet and stared at the stars. Millions of them twinkled and glittered, more than they had ever seen on even the clearest night. The smallest stars appeared as tiny specks in the distant sky, but many others were so near that they appeared the size of marbles, and others still were close enough to seem the size of Dylan’s hand. As he stood looking up, Dylan noticed a kind of a buzzing noise. He didn’t remember hearing it earlier. But now—a strong, steady, solemn hum rang out. Dylan took his eyes from the stars long enough to quickly glance around the mountaintop. He could see nothing that would make such a sound. It must have been coming from the stars themselves.
As before, with the bells, Dylan found himself wondering what was the proper way to begin a conversation with a star. “Oh, stars,” he began. He felt the old-fashioned sounding “Oh” was necessary, like when a character in a book addresses someone great and noble. “Oh, stars, please speak to us. We need your help.” He sounded little, lonely, and unimportant. Would the stars even speak to him? Why should they? He remembered the bell’s words: “I don’t know that they’d be willing to speak with you.”
For a long moment, it seemed that Dylan’s words had traveled out to space and gotten lost. No answer came back. There was no sound except the star noise. Finally, the star that must have been the closest, since it was the brightest and appeared the largest, began to shimmer and to twinkle more brightly. It really must be answering, Dylan thought with excitement, although he heard nothing. Then he realized that the sound of his words and sounds from the stars would need time to travel the distance between them. He waited a little longer and finally heard the voice of the twinkling star. The only way Dylan could describe the star’s voice later was by saying, “It sounded like a whispered roar. And the star was a lady. I’m sure of it.”
Although the star’s voice sounded as though it came from far, far away, it spoke distinctly. “We have one purpose,” the star said slowly and with great gravity. “One grand, glorious purpose. If we can meet your need as we fulfill our purpose, we will gladly give you ai
d. But know this—nothing will ever deter us from doing what we were designed to do. We have done it for centuries, for millennia, yet we never finish and we never tire. We have occupied these same places in the sky, night after night, day after day, always doing the same work. We know no change. Yet we never grow weary. We feel only delight in this most solemn, most joyful task we have received.” The words stopped, and Dylan realized that the shimmering of the star had also stopped, a moment or two before.
“What is that task?” Dylan asked and waited as his words found their way up to the stars.
Seconds before the large, bright star began to shimmer in reply, another little star grew brighter and more twinkly. Soon, Dylan heard a tiny, tinkling voice say, “He’s not very loud, is he? Do you think that’s the loudest he can talk?” and, then, without waiting for an answer, “Well, but he is so very, very little.”
The largest star’s words drowned out the rest of the small star’s comments. “We announce to everyone that the Founder . . .” The star paused and Dylan’s heart beat faster. The star’s voice grew even more solemn, and at the same time a tremor of joy ran through it. “That the Founder—is. We announce to every person on earth—for where is the place where stars are never seen?—to them all, we announce that the Founder is and that he is marvelous. He does remarkable things, amazing things. Look at us, the stars, and know that the Founder is altogether wonderful. Nothing, no one, is so excellent as he.”
Dylan felt wrapped in a warm blanket of deep, calm, solemn joy. He was growing accustomed to this sensation—it seemed to follow whenever anyone spoke of the Founder. He felt no need to say anything else, but then Clare whispered, “Can I ask something?”
He nodded, and Clare called out, “Oh star, why do we see so many star decorations in our Holiday vacations?”
The same long pause ensued, while the large star, and the little one near it, both began to shimmer at almost the same moment. The smaller voice reached Dylan and Clare first. They heard it say, “Oh, look! There’s another one! Look how teeny they are!”
The larger voice replied to Clare’s question. “When the Founder first came to rescue the citizens of the ancient town from their oppressive rulers, he gave one of us stars a task—a grave task, a glad task, a most serious and important task. One of us announced his coming to certain men who had been watching for him. And then, when the men went in search of him, that one showed them where to look.”
Excitement seized Dylan as an idea came into his head. He did not even wait for the star to finish speaking completely when he burst out, “Do you think one of you could do that for us? We do so want to find the Founder! Our time’s half gone already and it doesn’t seem like we’re any closer to finding him than when we first came.”
Dylan paced impatiently as he waited for his words to travel the distance. He stopped when both stars, big and small, but again, the smaller one first, began their prespeaking shimmer. “Isn’t that cute?” squealed the smaller voice. “He wants one of us to go with him.”
“That was one task, one time, for one star,” the larger star responded. “Our task now is simply to announce that the Founder is. He has other, surer ways of bringing people to himself and of making known just what he is like. Those things are not our task. We do our task, and ours only. It is enough for us, and it is enough to fill all our long years with richness.”
Dylan felt a little cloud of disappointment blow in and settle on the excitement he had felt, dampening it. The sky itself seemed to share his feelings. As the cousins had talked with the stars, the night breeze had grown stronger by degrees, bringing in clouds. Only a few clouds at first, but now more and more blew across the stars, blocking first some, then many, from sight. Dylan could not see the smaller star shimmer in preparation of speaking, but he soon heard it say, “Aww. Poor little thing. Do you think he’ll find the Founder?”
The deepening cloud cover muted much of the large star’s answer, but Dylan knew the answer by heart. “——don’t find—— Founder, —— finds you;—— Founder—— Finder, too.” Then the growing cloud cover broke just long enough for the large star to send down one final message. By the time the words reached Dylan, the star was no longer visible at all. Very few stars remained visible, peeping through the growing blanket of thick cloud. The words themselves, however, arrived as crystal clear as ever. “In the morning, go down the mountain and travel north. Head for the winter.”
Going back down the mountain proved to be much easier than going up had been. At times, both Dylan and Clare found their legs a little shaky, since their muscles were still complaining about yesterday’s hard climb. In a few places on the downward path, where the ground sloped steeply and the surface under their feet felt treacherous, Dylan and Clare sat down and inched their way along. For the most part, though, they had little trouble descending. When they reached the single tree that had shaded Mr. Smith’s refreshment stand, no trace of him or of his stand remained.
“Too bad,” Clare joked. “Now we’re going down instead of up. Now he would have let us have some refreshments.”
“You know he never meant to give us anything,” Dylan replied. “He just wanted to keep us from going up the mountain.” Then Dylan added, under his breath, “I don’t see why it’s so important to him to keep us from the real Holiday.”
“That’s okay,” Clare answered, not hearing Dylan’s last comment. “We don’t need refreshments anyway. It’s so much cooler today. Where were these clouds yesterday, when we were going up?” The clouds that had rolled in last night, ending the children’s conversation with the stars, had remained and thickened into a blanket, blotting out the sun completely.
“Cooler is better,” Dylan agreed, “but the stars said to go north when we get to the bottom. If these clouds don’t clear out a little bit, I’m not sure I’m going to know which way north is. I can’t see the sun.”
As it turned out, however, Dylan did not need the sun to help him choose the direction to take—a good thing, since the overcast sky had done nothing but darken as the children descended. Any question of which way to go melted away as soon as they could read the sign at the foot of the mountain. It said, “ROAD NORTH TO WINTERLAND MANUFACTURING, INC. ¼ MILE.” It pointed back down the road, the way they had come from the candlemaker’s shop.
Obediently, Clare headed down the road in the direction the sign indicated. Dylan stopped, though. He eyed the sign suspiciously and said, “That wasn’t here yesterday.” Stepping off the path, first on this side, then the other, he searched the area with his eyes, as though he hoped to see the one who had put up the sign. He saw no one. Shaking his head, he followed Clare.
The cousins traveled the quarter mile in no time, and found themselves at another sign, posted where a second smaller path branched off the one that led to Holiday Village. This sign said, “NORTH.” Then, underneath that, the children read, “WINTERLAND MANUFACTURING, INC.” and under that, in smaller print, “TINSEL AND FRESH ICICLES FOR SALE.”
Without discussion, Dylan and Clare turned toward the north and continued walking. Immediately, a sharp gust of wind hit them head on, bringing a hint of winter frost. “Oooh,” Clare laughed, pretending to shiver, “just like that. We turn the corner toward Winterland and get a winter blast of wind.” A second gust followed the first, and a third came up after that. The separate blasts of chill wind came more and more quickly and finally turned into one constant gale from the north. Clare made no jokes now. She walked with her arms folded tightly across her chest for warmth. “Brr,” she said. “I wish I had my jacket.”
Dylan thrust his hands as deeply into his jeans pockets as he could, trying to keep them warm. The wind brought tears to his eyes, and his nose had begun to run. He began walking more quickly, and said to Clare, “Let’s hurry. It will help us stay warm. Plus we’ll get there sooner.”
Clare picked up the pace, but she wasn’t sure about getting “there” any sooner, because no “there” seemed anywhere around. The la
nd lay flat and open, producing nothing to see in any direction. Perhaps someone farmed here in good weather—although Clare doubted that this particular piece of land ever had good weather. It felt as though nothing but winter ever touched this desolate spot. At any rate, nothing grew here now but an occasional clump of weeds. Wide open to the biting north wind, a barren wasteland stretched as far as the eye could see.
“Hey!” Dylan called out. “A snowflake!” One had just brushed against his nose—not that his nose would have felt it (it was too numb from the cold wind), but he had caught it out of the corner of his eye.
“So I see,” Clare answered, delighted. “One just landed on my shirt.” Clare always enjoyed snow. “Who ever would have thought it would start snowing? It’s been so warm!”
“But I think we should have thought of it,” Dylan answered.
“The stars said that to head north was to head for the winter.And the sign said there’d be fresh icicles for sale. We may be in for it.” Dylan had begun to understand that this trip to Holiday did not even faintly resemble any journey he had ever made before. Anything could happen here—and the things that did happen were not always comfortable. Indeed, as if in confirmation of his words, by the time Dylan had finished speaking, the snow was falling thick and fast. The few lifeless trees that stood here and there, isolated in the sterile fields, had begun to wear a coating of snow on their naked, outstretched branches.
“Let’s go faster,” Clare urged. She was beginning to crunch snow underfoot, and snow was getting into her shoes. Dylan, walking in front, had nothing to block the wind. It had already made his ears so cold that it felt as though they had frozen solid and could be broken off his head the way you can break icicles off the edge of a roof. Now the wind blew the falling snow into his face in stinging blasts of cold wetness. It also blew his thin shirt, useless against the wintry wind and growing wetter every minute, up against his skin.
