Chapter 1,
Kentucky
Blue Grass
16 years later, I woke up to a fog that refused
at first to lift its caress from my mind. My body felt distanced by sleep, planes and planes
of thick blue-green grass to separate me from- Nonsense. I opened my eyes
to dispel the nightmare. My life was here, among the
sounds of Seville and not of the seas of more
southern regions, come to choke me off
from the life I loved and flourished in.
All was well as it should have been, miles
and miles away from there, here in my
bedroom as solid and real as a mountain, as if
to bar me from such impressions of defeat
and loss. The seas were not for me; I needed
the strength of my bed too support me, the
glint of reflection in my mirror to show me myself
as real and here among the living.
I smiled at the image, and yet, there weren’t
many mornings I woke like this, not
many at all. Nightmares may creep sometimes
into my dreams, but always they leave me
with a sharper sense of what is real, a gratefulness
for what I have and a deep dread of
losing it again. But this time the realness
was flawed somehow, as if underneath it flew a
current of falsehood that threatened to tear
my room apart like so many dreams.
I sighed to myself, tugging gently at the
curls of brown with my brush. There was
nothing truly amiss, to be sure, it was only
a fog on my mind, urging me back to sleep as
if sleep were the more sensible of things.
Nonsense. My clothes were waiting for me to
take them up, my breakfast waiting for me to
make and consume it. Nothing else to be
weary of, since dreams rarely kill.
I stepped thus into the kitchen, throwing
up the windows to breath in the fresh
sent of grass- not blue grass, and not acres
of it, but a smell of green grass and tough tree
roots dampened earlier that morning. I
made well with my breakfast and called for my
dog, receiving no answer. I called again,
then realized she might be at Merci’s house
after all, affecting the cats. The thought
of Merci’s cats huddled around my shepard for
attention was too much to allow for lack of smile
and a warm glow in my heart. Of
course, and then Merci would be glad to see me
too.
After a nightmare it was best to seek Merci’s
council and care, or at least her
presence. She had the power to comfort
a wary heart at a glance, and make the road seem
far more traveled by. The blue stains would
fade under her gaze as before, receding to
where memories belonged. She could tell
you of a thousand versus and make her own if
she so was asked, and children would come to
her for stories. The undertones always
accented what was best in reality as it was,
even with the absence of dragons and spells of
warding. She would often tell me true stories
with the same reverence.
I smiled happily at her door, eyes bouncing
off the familiar numbers and
shrubbery to the door bell, pressing it with
my hand. “Hello?... Merci?” I tried again.
She must be out.
I looked about as if for the cause of a
riff, almost able to hear a tick or a beat,
constant and foreboding. I sighed, Impatience.
Greta,
my dog, where are you? I walked
around the house as if it would ease my confusion
to see that Greta was nowhere to be
seen, accepted the embrace of the fence there
as if Greta could have opened the door to let
herself in, but glancing around the enclosure
of my neighbor’s backyard, there was no dog
to be seen. I walked slowly back to the
front of the house, enjoying the fresh sent of the
world, never quite the same each morning, though
the mystery deepened somehow today,
ticking in the undercurrent.
I turned to face the house and yard of Merci’s
in full view, to enjoy the sharp
reality of the bricks and the -green- grass.
But glaring in front of me as if trying to make
my eyes sore was something that could not be
real at all- not in my days, not while Merci
still lived inside this earth and not in one
of the others she would enjoy telling of. But
dragons held more realism than the hot red letters
of the sign, spelling out carefully, “For
Sale”.
The ticking hid in subtleties, as if to
hide the obviousness of the flaw at present.
My eyes stared blankly in confusion, my heels
ready for flight as if that very same
blue-green grass was leaping to my feet, trying
to catch me in a world that had long ago
become unreality. My throat tightened,
and my mind screamed out for answer.
Something, must have happened to Merci, she wouldn’t
move unless made to, and then
she would tell me long before the day was imposed
on her.
Struggling, I turned away from her house
to mine, and lunged inside, fighting
back the impossibilities. Call 313-8349,
the sign had said. I picked up the phone and
dialed for information. Why why why? I
wanted to demand, make the world right itself.
But after all, some mistake must have been made
and I would soon see my friend again
regardless.
“Yes, may I ask for information on a house
for sale?” I asked, finding a light voice
easy enough, “Yes, that one. Who put it
up for sale? Excuse me, who? Alright, alright,
and when?” Three years. Impossible!
“There must be some mistake- what? No, I don’t
care to purchase the house- but three years ago?
By Garth Livingstone? No, I suppose it
doesn’t make all that much of a difference for
the sale of the house, yes yes, I’m quite in
health- thankyou.”
Numbed by the resolute click of the phone
I’d just set down, I stared around at my
house. Greta, where are you?
I walked around every inch of the place, glancing to see
that everything was- there, on the mantel, no
family pictures. Not of my Mother. No
pictures of her grim, rock drawn face and piercing
brown glare, the one that reminded me
of my own, softer brown eyes and how not to use
them; I had learned that glare well
enough to use it, but rarely did I dare.
I had chosen my father’s gentle and warming smile
to touch my features instead, though I had only
one picture of him. But there were none
at all on the mantle.
Quickly, I searched the drawer nearby, and
found what I was looking for; the one
picture I had of him, taken soon before his death.
Him sitting right next to my mother. I
winced at the day that represented, but, if it
were the only picture I had of him, and the
only one of her, then it was all I could use
to fill the space on the mantle. Even if it was
him with her, even if I felt like I was shredding
his proper memory.
Placing the picture there seemed to leave
a bigger hole, but for now that would
have to suffice. Everything else was in
order, except I couldn’t seem to find the dog food,
or the dog bowls. I felt as if I had missed
something; Greta and her supplies missing,
Merci... It seemed as if I had missed a few days.
Perhaps Greta was in someone else’s
charge, although this didn’t explain anything
concerning Merci.
My brain stuck on mute incomprehension,
not yet turned to refusal, watched as I
walked to Gerad’s house instead. Maybe
he would be home, and I had no desire to use
the phone again, its voice seeming to deliver
only what had to be false. I hesitated at the
doorway, some how afraid to leave my house and
visit the sunlight again. Even though
an impossibility had reached my phone in search
of wrecking what I knew, it seemed
comparatively safer inside, where I could pretend
there was no red lettering, “House For
Sale” on a blue, blue-green background.
I looked around at my yard, half of me
expecting some advesary, the other have of me
lurching in the need to see Greta racing
around the corner, Mommy, I’m home! and
stick her German shepard features into my
face until I knew nothing else existed.
But no such loping came my way, no such
luck. The day seemed rather normal
besides this one lack, and as long as I avoided
looking at Merci’s house. There was
nothing rather obvious to disturb the peace of
the evening, so I stepped out carefully
across my yard into Gerad’s. I stood in
his driveway awhile, looking for some clue or
token hidden deep within the Earth, or laced
deep within the air. There was only a hint at
things, a breeze that blew my hair the wrong
way perhaps. Smiling to push back my
dream, the impossibilities of it all, I strode
up in a semblance of confidence and knocked
the door, “Gerad? ‘Ello? You home?”
There was a brief pause as I strained to
discern any type of movement inside.
Nonsense, he must be home. “Gera-”
The door opened, and the younger man blinked
out sleepily at me. “Mhph, it’s no
time for talk, is it Janet? It’s too early
to pretend to be awake,” he whined in good humor.
“Look here, what is it?” he asked, his face forming
lines of worry and compassion.
“Oh, nothing really, by the looks of it,”
I seethed at myself silently, forgetting
momentarily why it was I wanted to come here
except for comfort, comfort that the world
wasn’t cracking at its foundations, and me all
the while more worried about the look of
relief that must have filled my features and
portrayed my senses. Of course he was here,
see? Maybe he could answer some
questions.
“Would you like to come in, then?”
I laughed, “What fore if nothing ills me?”
“Well, I asked you in, of course.
Was it a bad dream? Come in, come in
already.”
I stepped in behind him, watching him head
for the coffee machine in his nearby
kitchen. “Since when do you invite near
strangers into your house? And of the female
persuasion for that matter!”
“Huh, I thought you were more than a persuasion.
Sit down, enjoy my coffee.
What time is it?”
“Sometime after 7 in the morning.”
“Well, then, it’s as earlier as I thought. Any reason you needed my company?”
“Perhaps I thought to coax a jest out of you.”
“A jest, a jest? From me? Oh, have pity!
My pour soul can jest not in the
presence of such soft compassion which wields
the greatest of hungers to its knees like no
jest can!” he laughed, and bowed low to the ground
a moment in mock seriousness.
“Come now, why need you such a jest as mine?”
“To lighten the times,” I smiled, and sipped
the coffee he handed me. “Listen,
someone’s been playing a jest on me, and I want
to know if you know anything about it.”
“Bah! I play a jest on no-one!” he smiled
sleepily, not quite catching the urgency
in my tone, and sipped his coffee.
“You remember Merci?”
“Who?” he asked, giving me a blank look.
But that, too, seemed to have a restless
ticking, a restless undercurrent to it.
“Merci, you know-” I faltered, then changed
the subject slightly. “Nevermind.
Your memory is running decrepit without telling
you, Gerad.”
He smiled dissmissively and sipped his coffee as if to hide his face.
“Who lived in that house across the street? The one for sale?”
“Dunno, I wasn’t moved in whenever that happened. It’s been there a year or so.”
“Three years, actually.”
“Well, then, that explains it! My
memory hardly fails me- I was only 20 then and
hadn’t even heard of this place yet.”
I felt my gaze tighten uncontrollably a
moment, sensing that he had connected
Merci and the house somehow, unconsciously or
accidentally. He should know her.
Everyone knows her. “Of course,”
I agreed dimly, sounding distracted even to myself,
then acting on impulse, “Well, to tell you the
truth, I did have a dream. More than one,
actually.”
“Ah, so it was just a bad dream.”
Just? He had said it as if relieved and yet disappointed at the same time.
“I promise not to make a jest of it if you
tell me,” he smiled warmly, setting his
coffee a bit to the side, wide awakened by something
that had passed between us.
“Well if you promise not to laugh,” I agreed,
then hesitated. I needed time to
make Merci seem a dream when the words came to
my mouth. “Well, in one of the
dreams, I was standing with a man of whom I could
only see his feet walking across the
pavement in front of me, hearing every once in
awhile as someone would call my name,
until eventually it was him. Deep, careful
voice, asking how I liked something or other
we had done together.
“Another voice, young and full of the painful
knowledge of its exact and full
existence, cut him off to discuss something less
to do with me and more to do with them.
A knife ripped across every perception in the
dream, staining the picture blood-red, down
to the very roots of the grass- to the core of
the Earth for all its potence. The slick of the
redness forms into a river and I and my- the
lady I mean, are carried along starting from
the same place the dream started at before, only
its me and her this time, with the red
pushing me to follow, no call from others echoing
in my ear this time, only the red
causing my mouth to be too clogged to speak lest
I choke.
“The river pours into a field that doesn’t
end as far as my eyes can see, a field of
Kentucky-style blue grass, cut off from everything
by distance, from its very
blood-stained roots to the expansive sky above
and-” I stopped to let my lungs fill,
something I hadn’t permitted while I was unloading
the real dream and preparing the one
of Merci. “That was all, I woke up then.”
And
no time to prepare- why lie? Because
he’ll think I’m crazy. The whole world’s
gone mad. Nonsense.
“Well and fine, I suppose, unless the dream had quite a negative impact.”
“Negative impact? Of course it had
a negative impact! All that blood sinking
into-”
“The grass, yes I know. But you said
there were other dreams. Perhaps they tie
together?”
“You wish me to tire out your whole morning then?”
“Try me,” he insisted, with the hint of a laugh.
“Well, I dreamt also that the empty house
across the street echoed with humming
and story telling instead of silence. I
dreamed that a lady lived there before either of us
moved here, and that all species and types of
eager children flocked to hear her stories of
mystery and times past- and also that I would
listen into it forsooth and advice, as you
would on occasion.
"And in my dream her name was none other
than Merci and her tone none other
than care, a care that would coax the truth out
of a lie if twere allowed.
"It was a wonderful dream so that I could
hardly live a thousand years and utter it's
complexities of healing, and encompassed within
the dream seemed to be a lifetime
of days and nights until a night I drempt of
a strange woman who burnt away the real
world and told me it had never been so.
I suppose that's really two dreams," I ended in
satifaction, having recalled the burning of the
world as a dream that in truth had been
mine the night before. But Merci a dream?
Utter Nonsense.
“Indeed, a dream within a dream,” he replied
without the least bit of humor, as if
it were a more serious matter, as if he knew
that I was screaming inside by the tone of my
voice. “At any rate, even if the dream
is total folly you tell a story well. Maybe this
Merci is you when you’re older, eh?”
I shook my head without thinking. How
did he know she was older than me, if he
doesn’t remember her? “Do you think
she- exists- somewhere?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Janet. A dream’s
all ‘n well, but only a dream. All the
work of your subconscious, I’m told. Do
you want some more coffee?”
I looked down at my drained cup, surprised
I had been talking so long, “No, that’s
alright...” Tick tick. Obnoxious impression,
a clock in an undercurrent of reality. “Oh,
there is one thing I forgot about my dream.”
“Which one?”
“The last one. The whole time of the
burning ticked this infernal clock that
refused to die, and could not be erased, removed,
in anyway. So the fake world was built
around it.”
“Ah... lost time...,” he said to himself.
“You wish to force upon me an interpretation?”
“Not at all! If you asked for one
I‘d be forced to oblige, but that is a different
matter. So many people lose so much time,”
he sighed resignedly. “Janet, do you
remember last Christmas?”
“Well, of course it was less than a year
ago. Your memory fades more,
remember?”
“Yes, but- you remember us meeting there?”
“Where do you mean?”
“Well, but of course you remember!
I’d hosted a party and invited you and others
around the block, so there we met,” he stood
up and walked to my side.
I stood up to match him, “Oh? And what else happened in this fantasy of yours?”
“We danced, oh but-” he caught himself,
stifling a quiet dispair, “you must be
confused by your dreams, fair maden, and should
return to bed before you are mistakenly
carted away. You do remember, or will in
a short time. Please, your bed and you should
reconcile, considering what dreams have passed
before.”
“You and yours you surely mean, having been
disturbed. Fine, I’ll leave if you so
wish, and give sleep a chance enough. Fairwell,
my jester fails me.”
“Fails you? Oh! Such a Jester to be
shot, and such would gladly give you the
means,” he laughed, “come later when the jest
is worth telling, once you have regained
your proper sanity.”
I sighed, “Good morrow then, or goodnight,”
and stalked away, quite mad at all
that had dared changed around me. Dreams
are not true, even if they are sprung from
recollection they are no longer what is but what
was, and that is usually enough for me.
Now I just had to find out what had happened
to what is, and how to gain it back. Surely,
I was still the same; I still hated the look
of blue-green grass, still hated those reoccuring
dreams, still hated the fire and the ticking
underneath which refused everytime to play out
as a hope not disguised.
I returned to the fortitude of my house,
though not to sleep away my problems as
if the world had not gone mad. Merci was
an old friend of mine in the sense that she was
old and seemed at first meeting as if she already
knew you in and out, no matter if you
wanted it that way, but at any rate she would
keep it all a secret for you if you only asked.
She was a stable part of a world that found it
intricately hard to be entirely stable. She
was real; no bending of my limited imagination
could produce such a comforting and
complex figure, just like no breaking of Gerad’s
imagination could say taht we had met
and danced together at a Christmas celebration.
Merci belonged in that house across
from mine, Greta belonged at my side, and Gerad
belonged without the rememberance of
me at some party I had never even been to.
I had not gone crazy. If I were to
go crazy I would go crazy in the normal,
unimaginitive way; I would start rambling about
clowns coming to get me and mice
stalking me at every turn. I would not,
if I were insane, say that the world had been
burned away and recreated by elves or what have
you. Something had changed, perhaps
several things had changed. This fact made
my throat rebel against me and my eyes want
only to be closed against the change. It
was something I was not made to deal with more
than once; a person can’t be uprooted, or have
the roots cracked into unrecognition,
without prevocing some sort of outburst or denial.
Merci! She has to exist!
To set my determination was like setting up a
butterfly, specifically, a very determined
butterfly: ready to burst quite harmlessly into
shreds. But at least this butterfly would try
to fly hard and fast, searching out that omnious
riff in all that is now in order to find what
should be what is.
This time, like the butterfly, I would be
as insignificant as possible to those
around me; how could I again withstand such an
open assult to my mind as what Gerad
had given me last night? The facts as they
were to him, different from the most basic of
what I knew, yet seemingly in his mind all that
ever was. So for my own self interest I
searched for any signs of Merci in private.
A dog could be lost, a party forgotten by
sufficient quantities of alcohol, though I never
drink, yet a human? And for it to be the
very human who lived across the street from me
everytime I needed her and inbetween- to
lose Merci- Impossible. There must be some
record of her, somewhere. I knew enough
about her past to search for it’s imminent traces,
like the clock that wouldn’t burn, didn’t
I?
But when I got to the library, I found I
could not recall a single mention of her old
school, old residence, or anything useful of
that sort. I was also reminded that I had so far
failed to actually find the clock that wouldn’t
burn, to find any representation of it, or
what it represented in the real world.
It was if my subconscious wanted me to fail, and
yet, deeper than that I knew I had to find what
was suddenly akward about the world
around me.
Still, I felt discouraged as I ruffled aimlessly
through various reference book,
trying to remember anything statistically important
about Merci’s life, anything to point at
and say She exists somewhere, by hell! She
exists!, but all the while I was wincing at the
idea that, if I can not even decifer the most
basic parts of myself, than how am I to
suddenly become a detective, nonetheless, out
detecting something I had no name for?
Only a wrongness, a tear that showed through
to what should be.
As a last ditch effort, I decided to check
that the major truths were still intact, that
is, the major truths according to the collective
human race. World War One, check,
World War Two, check, American Civil War, check...
Frustrated, I could feel these
mounds of useless, unchanged information distancing
me from waht I was looking for,
for some essential change to say that I was dreaming
or- No, not dreaming. But I felt
choked there, as if I could see a clock ticking
away quickly just out of my reach, yet
seemingly farther so that every step I took was
too small to get it quite in reach, to get to
the wagon it was perched on top of any closer
so that I could reach it through all the
flames and prevent the blood from taking me away.
Time was ticking too fast for me to
step against to capture that infernally annoying
truth, that change that would open the riff
and let me into the rightful world again through
all the flames and blood. It got so bad
that the walls turned to crimson in my eyes and
began to melt to the floor with each
hurrying tick of the clock, just waiting to wash
me away.
I practically ran out of the library, and
in the dirrection of home without thinking.
My house was almost, btu again, not quite the
same. But it was my only true refuge; I
didn’t know anyone well besides Merci and Gerad,
so I went no where but past them,
hurrying along the sidewalks before the river
could catch me and the rightful world rip
apart underneath the current. I passed
the bushes as quickly as I could, ignoring their
primness and wild, dragonish shapes when I got
to Merci’s house, and then, the huge red
letters, “Sold”.
I ran home.
Flames over the world
Truth to be disease
And all the while time is lost
Are you to be released.
Tick Tock, Come to supper Honey. The
time is running out, you’ve got to hurry. That’s
right now, behave yourself. No, Daddy
won’t be in till late, com’on sit still. Yes, you had
a good day then? Splendid. Sit down
I said! Listen to your mother!
“Janet? I knocked, and none to answer; is
the Jester no longer to be welcomed? Come
now, be sensible, what is this, laying on the
couch in the earliest of afternoon times and
neglecting your callers in preference of sleep!
By God, have you gone mad?”
“Perhaps I’m angry,” I mumbled with a sense
of relief and anger at his intrusion
while I was asleep.
“Distracted you mean! I bet you have yet to eat lunch.”
“Is it lunch time?” I asked, barely stirring
myself from my comfortable, relaxed
position. Comfortable excluding the pressure
in my head and throat, and the feeling that
giving up that position would severly rip apart
whatever stability and happiness I had as
of yet.
“Alas, such a maiden as you has not only
given up on er guests but is- well,
hungry for one. Here, don’t get up I’ll
get you something.”
“Since when have you taken to calling on me without me inviting you first?”
“Awhile now, of course, but it’s never been
a disturbance at merely 1pm. Are you
rested now? You didn’t possibly sleep since
you left my house till now!”
“No I- ran to clear my mind.” I ran to
run. “I was so exhuasted-” so
overwhelmed, “that I must have fallen
asleep-” collapsed, “when I got home.”
“Oh? And what dreams carresed you this time?
They seem to have created worry
lines about your features,” he commented dissaprovingly,
as if he knew I had lied, wished
there was something more to it than simple truth-
or simply cared that I might have had a
bad dream.
“Only more of that red river. But
tell me, who has finally moved in across from
us?”
“Ah, so you noticed. Some man-boy
really- from down south, by the name of
Daniel Livingstone.”
“... that would be a relative of Garth Livingstone,
the previous owner. His son
actually... he lived in Haynard County until
now...”
“Oh? And did a ghost tell you? You look it!”
“Nevermind... oh, thankyou,” I commented
over the food I had just noticed beside
me. But, then again, I didn’t feel like
getting up; the more I moved about the more the
impossibilities mounted. What if Daniel
sees me, and doesn’t recognize me? Ignoring
the food, I searched for my newly found purpose.
Daniel: he and his dad were there to
greet us when we came down there, leaving
dad up here in a grave unmarked. He
would often try to play with me when mother
wasn’t looking, until we both got in trouble
and I wasn’t allowed out of the house. But
there are no records for that. “Gerad?
What is the most important thing in history?”
“History as most people mean it is hardly
that important. Nothing affects you
more than your first kiss or what have you, not
even the knowledge that- oh but you
haven’t even touched your food.”
“I’m fine, continue.”
“Well, the point is, only things that affect
you personally- the every day things- or
rather, only your own life is most important
in history to you.”
“And so, whatever is most important in my life is most important in history.”
“Precisely! This red river for instance,
it seems to have come up a lot. Perhaps
that has some connection with whatever is most
important in your life. What it comes
down to is, people are most important, so whatever
affects an individual the most is
therefore the most important concerning that
individual.”
“It hardly affects me that much,” I insisted quietly,
sitting up as if it had sown the
world together instead of ripping it apart.
I didn’t need to search for Meci persay, but
search in my own history where I would be more
able to find a change, a wrongness in
the world.
“Well, and then there are two ways for a
thing to affect you,” he continued to
himself.
“Really?” I mused, “what ways?”
“Well... fist of all, you can pretend
it never happened. Let’s not go there- there is
a whole slew of things to say about denial and
the such. But, assuming that you are not in
denial, there are two ways it can affect you,
two main ways.”
“Spit it out already.”
“You know how hard articualting is for a
jester, fair maiden, have pity! It takes a
moment of eternity to form a thought into a word.
And more than a word is needed for a
single thought, but here lets see if words can
form a thought: if, for instance, you meet a
person you do not enjoy being with, you can do
one of two things; you can adopt the way
that person acts and yourself become despisable,
or you can choose to be the other way
around and act as they do not.”
“You mean then, that you can choose to have
it impact you in a negative or
positive way?”
“No, no! Not that at all, surely you jest
now! If you were to meet a person you
rather enjoyed, you could still either be like
them or not; you could choose wether you
wish to repeat the event, or prevent it.”
“Ah... I see. There are many thigns I have chosen to prevent.”
“I trust your judgement,” he grinned. “Finish eating already.”
While under Gerad’s scrunity, however, I
needed only to eat and make out as if I
were well enough indeed, under no threat of virus
tugging at my heels, no visions of blue
roots and broken wings barring my way: no visions
of my mother. And yet I could feel he
probed for something of this sort, as if wishing-
no, daring- me to be sick or out of place
in some way, as if I were the clock that kept
on ticking. Lost time, he had said before,
and fragments of the song had penetrated my dreams
today. Flames...to be disease... to
be released... I shook my head clear,
not able to remember the whole thing at the
moment. At any rate, time was not lost
if it was buried, not lost as long as we were there
to percieve some form of it, and eat lunch peacefully
as it ticked by. So I would continue
to believe until proven otherwise.
And in the meantime, I was left to wonder
over how to bring the world back into
place so that the pieces fit again as before,
every last one of them. But how could I know
this if I didn’t know even what or why it was
changed as it was? Merci was gone, Greta
was gone, and so many other things. I couldn’t
stop staring at the sign, “Sold”, couldn’t
stop watching Daniel be moved in. Couldn’t
stop pouring over his features, sure to every
shiver of my bone that it had to be him and no
other, no other like him.
Black hair as if the night had borne him,
brown eyes as if he were blessed by
whomever made the deer, and skittish to match.
He could be morbid sometimes and hide
his soul behind the blackness as if he was afraid
of you or what you might do together.
Excepting these times of weakness, he was straight
enough in stature and forward in play,
eager to catch your attention for the good of
matters. Yet in the end he did have a morbid
facination with southern soil, as if he wished
to study the flows that had taken me there to
see if the blue could be stained red deep underground.
He had wanted to stay where he
was planted because it was the source of all
the trouble, when any normal human being
would have been glad to leave. But he had
to find himself there, he had said. How was
he suddenly uprooted?
The thought made me dizzy with wonder.
Had he finally followed me here?
After these years, it seemed unlikely.
Another stepping stone out of place, and I would
have to leap to the next one over the killer
current and hope I didn’t fall. My bridges
were being broken down board by board, leaving
a careless step to make a plunge in order.
And Gerad, the silent keeper of the bridge.
He knew what this world thought of
as right, and in his eyes, my reflection seemed
distorted, as if I were the thing wrong here.
“Something wrong?”
He smiled to wipe away all the traces, “I
was only wondering what could hold
such a lady’s interest for so long. I hear
you are hard to please.”
“Fool’s gold. I’m easily made happy.”
“Then how may I ease your troubles?”
“Keep the china from falling.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Keep the cracks out of it, and make it whole.”
“I don’t see any china.”
“It holds a thing that makes it invisible
by virture of it’s nature. If you spi;l it, the
cracks will come again.”
“Are you asking me to keep you safe?”
“Something like that.”
“You sound awake, but perhaps you’ve only fooled me.”
“No, thankyou for stopping by. I wouldn’t
mind the least if you did again, but in
the meantime, I have some things to do that are
not for guests to bare witness to.”
“You make yourself mysterious.”
“I simply wish to be alone, perhaps return to sleep.”
“Well, in that case, have a good rest, fair
maiden, and feel my house to be as free
to you as yours,” he smiled warmly, and
left me to myself.
I’ve heard that books are wings of freedom, and
so returned to the library with new
purpose. What could I know more of but,
invariably, my own hard, factual life? I knew
what to be fact in my life, and no false feathered
wings could convince me otherwise.
Most birds are true, aiming for the sun, but
all of nature can be corrupted by the improper
authorities. I’ve also heard that wings
are anything that aim for the sun without being
burnt to death in it’s presence, and that books
are simply a most comon form of this,
sporting fine crafted, delicate wings as the
details and truths pour forth off the pages.
I found falsified wings, wings that by no true
nature could exist. Finally, after
searching for some imperfection to render all
an illusion and underneath, if only I could
fly high enough to find it, the true stability
of my life, I found a hint. This illusion was
built on the most complex, intricate- yes, delicate-
of stilts. From a distance they
appeared the same, but closer revealed different
writing enscralled in a few places. For
instance, I was born in Seville. That much
is clear and remained as I remembered.
According to the feathers, I had never moved?
south. Nonsense. Never been there.
Never watched my mother plant a perfect, meticulously
perfect garden beside our house
there. She had never been there either.
Never, ever dragged me there. Impossible! We
went! She made me! Because-
“Mrs. Kevitt?”
I turned around to see that shock of black hole
I was studying earlier. “Mr.
Livingstone! Why, I didn’t expect you to
be here, away from your new home,” I said,
joking down my protest and surprise. Not his
home.
“Yes, Mr. Halfire sent-”
“Gerad, you mean?”
“Yes,” he carefully reconsidered his words as
he spoke, as if he had almost let out
a secret, “I asked him where my missing neighbor
was, and he told me you might be
here.”
You were a bitter little boy. “Yes,
it’s well to watch out for missing neighbors. I
don’t know how you could have recognized me,”
since
you’ll pretend you never saw me.
Blew your cover, eh? Well, you always
did seek me out.
“I guessed, because unless you are the librarian,
there are no other choices,” he
shrugged. “At any rate, it’s nice to meet
you Miss Kevitt.”
“And you, Mr. Livingstone. I’m done here, and
you may follow me out if you
wish, rather then being the only one here excepting
the librarian. There now, I do have
the normal neighbor meeting questions to ask
you, as I’m sure you may of me. Care to
join me in conversation then?”
“And what would you do if I did not, have you someone else on your schedual?”
“No, I suppose I would talk to myself. Now
then, we’ll walk unless you have a
car.”
“I don’t. I walked, as the day is fair enough.”
“You said-”
“Here, let me hold that for you,” he insited, opening the door for me.
“-that Gerad sent you after me. Does he want something of me?”
He walked to stay ahead of me, his pace tickign
like a nervous stopwatch on the
sidewalk. “Well, yes- he- he was concerned,
and asked that I check on you...”
My urgency carried me along the sidewalk to a
position next to his ticking, but the
sidewalk could not flow red, could it?
Seeing as how, that had never happened, never
filled my dreams at all, according to those stone
birds. And he was never there. “So, Mr.
Livingstone, tell me about yourself?”
He laughed, “You sure are forward.”
“Only pecular. But I didn’t ask about me, I asked about you.”
“Well... I grew up a long time ago, and then people
started listening to me... You
seem surprised? Well, I’m usually trusted from
the first, as your old freind Gerad proved-
yes, we had a bit of a talk, and as I said, he
was worried about you.”
“Oh? And where’d you learn such persistance.”
“I supose I am persistant, learned that from my
father. Start something and finish
it, no matter what. But I’m afraid I have
no idea what you are refering to specifically.”
“You are very persistant in steering the conversation
towards myself. What is
wrong, you don’t believe me to be well?
I didn’t think Gerad could be that worried about
me.”
“I suppose it would help his case if you were
to see him and assure him somehow,
but at any rate and any way you put it, I may
have caught his worry but I also simply don’t
know you very well, Ma’am.”
“Tell a man your dreams and he thinks you believe in them,” I chided.
“What sort of dreams?”
“You are, as you said, not my friend.”
“True, I am simply trying to imagine what strange
dreams could scare him,
coming from such a lovely neighbor.”
I looked up to him and almost ran into a wall
of irony. Like iron, it seemed thick
enough to bar my way, and served to numb my mind
for the moment, forcing me to
recall. Daniel had acted this way before,
when
I first met him, he was like this, though we
had been so much younger, and so much to be weary
of. If this was trully a new world, if
the rest was all my perceptions, if the feathers
were right after all than they need not be
made of stone but of the lightest bone, and could
bear me to the sun. Especially if that
sun was anything like his smile.
I responded shyly, “You have all day to tell me
of yourself, and without
interrupting any plans of mine. If you
have none, then- well, I suppose then you would let
me ask of you anything?”
“Oh, of course. And here we are- come on
inside, Miss Kevitt,” he offered,
opening the door.
If I could just grasp what was out of my reach,
stop those who laughed at me, then
I could put to rest my own unease. I had
to make sure there were no traces of my memory
in the reality around me. If a knife was
innocent here where there was not, then all should
be well. I was afraid that because of Daniel’s
previous, or should I perhaps say imagined,
links with my own past, that he would have no
trouble finding it from my lips, or from
the way I glanced around. Any part of me
could portray that I was out of sync with this
world.
Still fresh in my memory were the differences
of the two worlds, but his presence
confused everything. I knew I was right,
yet how could he and Gerad both be wrong? I
could imagine Gerad hiding something dangerous
from my view with all his might and
soul, but surely Daniel had nothing to do with
that.
If all that had been etched before was etched
in clouds, then this was the life to
live for. It felt as if the current were
askance, yet then again, there was no current. Truth
or not, this new world that I had waken into
and had yet to shake loose had built along
with it’s self a pure white wall. As long
as that wall shined and bared the penance of my
dreams, Oh I hope they are only dreams, for that
long would the river cease to run.
“...I can’t quite remember the first verse...
Here, let me try...
...world
...disease
...lost
...released.
We pray to you oblivian
The world is washed anew
Through and through rebuilt for you
And never known as changed.
Sleet and Rain and all fall down
Soaking deep into the ground
Far beneath and through the mud
Death be bold and river run.
Police! Police!”
I stopped to catch my mind, lungs heaving and eyes blinking against
the rain. The
pounding invaded my thoughts as it did the concrete, and became a part
of them. Rush
rush! the tempo called run!
“Police!” I called again.
The sound of feet agreeing with the rain, run run hurry!
and an officer noticing
the distress.
“Help!” I choked out, I’ve got to tell! Help!
“Janet!” Daniel called out haggardly, as if we had run miles.
“Janet, come back!”
He layed a hand on me, “What’s wrong?!”
“Stay away from me! I won’t hide any longer!”
I received only a confused look from him as I pulled away, feeling
at the same
moment the officer’s steel presence. “Officer,” I begged, catching
my mind still, or
rather, it trying to catch up.
He stepped between us two as if between hounds and a piece of
meat. I’m not a
peice of meat! I refuse to be worthless! “What seems
to be the problem here?” he asked
severly.
My mind was still catching up.
Daniel gave the man a thankful, respectful look. Just
like to a master. “I’m not
sure, Sir. She just ran off.”
“Ma’am, are you alright?”
Sleet and rain and all fall down...
“Well, she wasn’t the nicest person...
What? died in a car crash? No, but my father did.
Or so the record says. No, it’s not
true- you should know-
Oh, right, nevermind, I just forgot. Of course you wouldn’t
know...
Right through the heart. She used to sing me the strangest
song...
No, I can’t quite remember it actually. But I watched her bury
him, the knife too...
What, you really don’t remember that happening? But I asked
you to come with me when
I left!
No, stop it! It’s not true!”
Death be bold and river run...
“Ma’am? did you hear me?”
I looked up at him, startled and sturggling to lift my head under
the rain, to force
my eyes to see through the pounding.
“I’m going to take her in for a few tests, Sir.”
“I-I guess... her neighbor- Gerad Halfire- was worried about her
earlier. I don’t
really know her that well... she’s just upset I think... but maybe
you should call him.”
Shhhhhhh, forget it child, it isn’t meant to be remembered.
Hush, there, he’ll be
alright. He always could take care of himself. Now go
to sleep and forget it...
We pray to you oblivian
The world is washed anew
Through and through rebuilt for you...
Just forget it, child.
I watched the officer as he slid the rain drops around my wrists
and let them solidify.
“I won’t forget this!”
“Ma’am, please, don’t struggle. It’s for your own good.”
It’s for your own good to just forget it. He was a good man,
and we’ll miss him... Just
sleep.
A feild, too long to see past, and one rose in the center.
The feild flies past, growing no
less in size but, rather, seeming to lengthen until the rose in
the closest thing in the
picture. The rose withdraws to show the frame around the scene,
and the colors change
from realistic to vivid pastels, the reddest of reds for the rose
petals, outlined in steel,
with dark green for the stem and silver tips on the thorns.
The grass seems to be smeared
blue and green streaks, and the frame is the color of the rose.
Dirt falls on the picture,
quickly covering it up as it falls away to the left, a gravel driveway
becoming visable in
blurred pastel colors. The car keeps driving away as an eagle
emerges from the picture’s
grave, shakes itself off, and flies away. The scene freezes,
the feathers of the eagle
outlined in thick black pen.
“Janet?”
I opened my eyes to the soft voice, “Good morning, Jester.”
Gerad sat down next to me on the bed, “Are you feeling rested?”
he asked me
politely, so quietly I almost couldn’t make out the words. I
had to struggle to wake up.
“Mh-hm. I forgot to forget.”
“Janet, what are you talking about?”
“Mh, nevermind. What are you doing here?”
“Trying to take you home.”
“Having trouble?”
“Yeah... actually, I am. You’ve convinced everyone you’re
not well. I hope you
don’t mind talking to strangers, especially ones with docterates.”
“Feh, you make no sense.”
“Just get whatever rest you can. I’ll bring you home... when I can,” he warned.
“Sure.”
“You sound like your dreams are more entertaining than me.”
“Just perplexing. I’m alright, they’ll let me out soon. I just have to tell them-”
“No,” he cut me off, “You don’t have to tell them anything.”
His eyes were too
hard to resist. Not tell? Forget again... “Don’t
worry, you can tell me when I get you,
ok?”
“Thankyou... I will. Where is Daniel?”
“As lost as ever.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nevermind, I’ll explain it to you later. Did you dream about Merci again?”
“No, but I miss dreaming that....”
“What about the feild?”
“Yes, that I always dream about. More than ever.”
“Ok... you can tell me later, please. Your Jester will wait,
my Lady. Now I must
leave you to your dreams, which are more perplexing than my company.”
“Mh, ok. See you later. No, wait; one thing first.”
“Yes, My Lady wishes something of me?”
I smiled, trying to seem as light as he sounded, “Prove to me.”
“Prove what?”
“Yourself.”
“Challenge me, and I will.”
“Lean closer, for only soft ears hear soft words. Here is
a riddle: I know the first
two verses of a special song. What is the third?”
“Pray, Ma’am, tell these soft ears what song you wish their mouth
to whisper to
you.”
“You wish part of that which you should know?”
“I know too many songs, yes.”
“If you listen to my thoughts with your ears, then you are one
to trust.”
Sleet
and Rain and all fall down
Soaking deep into the ground
Far beneath and through the mud, “...
Death
be bold and river run.”
“Your ears should be softer than mine, to match your head.
M’Lady, that is no
song to sing within such company.”
“You know it not.”
“It is true that I cannot read thoughts.
Nature's rose and petal
Are perfect in their way
But in the end the seer bends
And wishes them away.
What say you to that?”
“If I were forced to speak then I would not entertain the forcer.”
“I beseech, not force. This is no game you play, though
words think so and others
may by such words bethink us both fools. Do you wish that I were
chained as well?”
“I want only out and back to before, so this is what I say: you know my dreams.”
“Only if I come in the night.”
“I would not know you from the shadows.”
“Do shadows move, and speak?”
“I’ll wait for a speaking shadow.”
“And I’ll bring you to a perfect rose.”
“Perfection is created.”
“Then I will bring you an imperfect rose.”
“But never marred.”
“Only truth intwined.”
“Then go, prepare your rose.”
“It is you who are not ready. Beware the Rain Maker.”
“I’ll wait for the speaking shadow and slip past the rain.”
“Good girl,” he said, raising his voice to a normal level. “Be nice to the doctors.”
“The rain is all that bothers me.”
“It never lasts,” he laughed, and left before I could say more.
All is darkness, and there is the sensation of laying on one’s back.
A dim light as a door
opens, and the sound of soft, disconnected and distracted humming
coming from the lady
who enters. At first, only her feet are visable, but soon
she is revealed as a women of
mature features shrouded in shadows.
“Dear, hold still. Janet! I said hold still! There
now, you aren’t afraid of poison
are you?”
Struggling is felt, and the humming resumes and developes into song:
“Killing is the hardest
Blood traces will be left
And poisoned blood will set minds numb
To changes wrought for best.”
The room rights itself as the lady lets go and backs away.
“Janet, my poor daughter.
You’ll never understand, and you’ll never forget. Never.
You’ll never be changed.
Niether of us will. Forget, forget...”
The dim light fades to black as the details of the scene begin
to fade from
consciousness.
“Your shadow, my lady. Please, hurry and be soft in feet.”
I caught my breath, trying to clear the dream from my mind and
focus on what
dared call itself reality now. Nothing was right, all the petals
were faked for the rose, but
my speaking shadow seemed to have an answer. Perhaps not the
only answer, perhaps his
answer would be another designed petal and I would never find the natural
one. But I
would never forget. I scrambled to Gerad’s side, sensing
his urgency like the flow of a
swift river where the water has already left you behind, its only traces
the stains on your
feet. Like 16 years ago, all I could do was follow the wake and
pray I would not be
swallowed by it. But Gerad was such a different leader, and truth
the only power.
“Here we are where we may whisper and rest. Hold fast- how are you?”
“As sane as ever.”
“And as confused?”
“With a lot of questions.” It would help if they were
answered. “Why do you call
me your lady?”
“I am of The Keep, and therefore try to serve. Plus, you
have always called me
your jester.”
The crack in the porcelain glass widened, revealing a bit of what
was inside. If
the glass could be broken, then order could be restored, for the inside
of the cup could
never be marred. “The Keep. The name rings true, but truth
of what?”
“Here is what is said of us, and perhaps you will recognise the
song:
Sleet and Rain and
all fall down
Soaking deep into
the ground
Far beneath and through
the mud
Death be bold and
river run.
Protection to the Rain Maker
Who gives nocturnal sun
We catch The Keep who hide away
We keep our sheep at peaceful bay.”
“No, you only confuse me more.”
“So is my job. A jester! Hark, a jester is a seer sometimes.”
“I see nothing to convince me.”
“It is not my song that I have song; the ‘we’ does not include me or mine.”
“Than who are The We?”
“The Rain Maker’s children.”
“And who is he?”
“Sometimes, a she. It is your turn to answer; who are you?”
“I am me as you have always known me to be.”
“Who are you to remember the world before? Who are you to
have poisoned
blood?”
“My blood holds no poison.” No poison for me. I’m not so young as that.
“And poisoned blood will set minds numb
To changes wrought for best.
You are numbed to changes; who is Merci?”
“Merci?” I asked, nothing coming to mind. I found the question
to be a cliff and
the answer oblivian. But if I could fly, then all would be well;
unfortunately, I found all
pretense of wings had left me.
“You don’t remember her? Do you remember anything?”
“I didn’t know there was anything for me to forget.” He must be crazy.
“Quickly, answer this! Why did you run from Daniel?”
“I... don’t quite remember...,” if only I could find my wings,“I
was trying to
explain my dreams to him, I think, and then I... I was overwhemled
I guess.”
“You remember your dreams, then? The ones about the river, and the field.”
“And the flower.”
“The rose? So you do remember then.”
“How did you know it was a rose?”
“You told me I knew your dreams:
Nature's rose and petal
Are perfect in their way
But in the end the seer bends
And wishes them away.”
“Stop it with that poem already!”
“It is an evil poem. Come, your memory is fading and that
must be fixed, then we
may talk of deeper things,” he explained, taking me by the arm.
“What things?”
“For one, you can tell me where you learned that poem.”
“From my mother.”
“Speak as you walk, please, my lady. This matter is urgent.”
“Where did you learn it?”
“The Keep has it on file. It was made for the Rain Maker
and his children and we
wish to know our enemy’s call.”
“Do you know the whole thing?”
“I do. And you?”
“Me too.”
“Who was your mother?”
“Danielle Kevitt.”
“You!” he hissed, “You are the child of a Rain Maker!”
“I thought there was only one? You speak of ‘The Rain Maker”
and then “a Rain
Maker.” Alas, my jester seeks to drive me mad.”
“Take this.”
I backed away from him, not liking the closeness of the dimly
lit room. *And my
mother is a Rain Maker. What is that?!
The strangeness of the world around me had
increased since first it had changed, and any wings I might have had
to show I know the
truth had stripped themselves of their own solid aspects. No
one will believe me. I don’t
even believe me. Are the books right afterall?
Gerad drew himself closer, holding something sharp with which to
poison me.
But I won’t be poisoned again. He stood between
me and the light of the door, drawing
closer. “Please,” he warned, “you’re losing everything.”
“I don’t believe you! Stay away...”
“Don’t make me force you. This is something you need to remain of The Keep.”
“But you said I was the child of a Rain Maker...”
“Physically. Who knows for sure? But if you wait any
longer, you will never
know who you are, or where you come from. You will be like Merci;
the life you knew
will have never existed. Take it.”
“But my mother was a Rain Maker.”
“I’ll explain it later! Please! Before there is no one left to explain it to!”
“And how are you, Miss Kevitt?”
“Awake I think... who are you?” I asked, having actually
been awake a long time
before this lady had disturbed me. I had been laying in a sea
of calm, acute acceptance
with my eyes closed lest they meet with something or someone to arouse
the dark, satrical
humor that seems to reside in everyone. If I was fed anymore
of that type of humor, if I
was met with anymore play of words the play would surely work to twist
my mind
beyond untwisting. So, I had been laying still, soaking in the
quiet companionship of this
nurse who had just now greeted me.
“My name is Heather, but we have not met before. How are
you feeling? It
seems you were reached just in time.”
“If you are worried about my memory, it’s quite restored.”
“We are only worried about your memory becuase it is right now
a very important
part of your life and who you are. I’m sorry we seem to have
frightened you, though.”
“Yes, I suppose you did.” I can’t believe I let him ‘poison’
me. But if Gerad -if
this Keep- isn’t trustworthy, then all the world’s against me. “Is
it true...the whole world
may change around me- but I won’t?”
“It’s true.”
“How does that happen? I mean, why do things change in the first place.”
“The Rain Maker decides what ‘should’ be changed, and the children
on the Rain
Maker change it.”
“Won’t the Rain Maker and his children change too?”
“If everytime the Rain Maker ordered time to be changed he forgot
the changes,
there would be no Rain Maker. That’s why there is this concoction
that keeps a person
from changing with time. Now, it does wear off after 15 or 20
some years, and we caught
you just before it wore off. Hush now, and wait here for Gerad.
He wanted to speak to
you.”
I did hush, waiting with bated breath for the solidity of the
world to be broken. I
waited and searched for any perceived change in my mind or in the world
around me.
The room held true in form, remaining over all a bit stuffy and weighted
by the miles of
ground hanging on it’s roof and the vacuum of darkness that sucked
at the edges of the
door, making the light seem dimmer there. The hallway outside
refused to echo of
passerbys, giving the impression of safe solitude and remoteness from
the random world I
had my entire life learned about no matter how I wished to keep my
special part of that
world stable. Because of matters I would never fully comprehend,
because of influences,
nuiances, and powers far beyond my control, that bit of life that I
had held dear to me had
changed, from the unimportant details in the library to the all important
personas around
me and mine.
But even though it was different, this world held its own.
It vibrated with its own
existance, as if there was a noisey neighbor next door, causing the
walls to shake. I did
not have to wait long for Gerad to appear like a phantom at the edge
of the hallway, and
followed as he beckoned me down the muted carpet hallways and the tall,
dark ceiling of
rock over head. Each room had a roof and a fiant smeblance of
having been built outside
and above ground, but the hallway did not give way at all to this illusion.
Still, it was
rather nice, and the careful fluxuations in Gerad’s voice were a good
accompaniment.
So this is where The Keep live. “Does it ever change?”
“Does what ever change?”
“The Keep.”
“The people, since they are always as promptly prepared with the
poison as
possible, rarely change... Janet, allow me to tell you a story.”
“Go on, Jester.”
“There once was a group standing in a spaceous, damp underground
cave. Shouts
filled the room, shouting for each of the voices’ owners and telling
their own stories of
who shoudl be the one next called Rain Maker, and why it should be
precisely so. The
previous leader had died without any indication given to his people
of who to rule after
him, and so as the first time the Rain Maker was chosen, they picked
for themselves.
“Long stories were told at the time about the orgins of the Rain
Maker and why
they were called so, the song of his children sung as many times as
throats could want,
with especial emphasis on the chorus, for this was considered the definition
of the Rain
Maker’s job. I was there at this meeting, and sang along with
the rest. I would be the last
time I sang the song in that cave- this cave- for the same purpose.
The song was and
always will be titled Lost Time, no matter how much time is lost since
its creation.
“Flames over the world
Truth to be disease
And all the while time is lost
Are you to be released.
“We pray to you oblivian
The world is washed anew
Through and through rebuilt for you
And never known as changed.
“Sleet and
Rain and all fall down
Soaking deep
into the ground
Far beneath
and through the mud
Death be bold and river run.
“Nature's rose and petal
Are perfect in their way
But in the end The Seer bends
And wishes them away.
“Killing is the hardest
Blood traces will be left
And poisoned blood will set minds numb
To changes wrought for best.
“Sleet and
Rain and all fall down
Soaking deep
into the ground
Far beneath
and through the mud
Death be
bold and river run.
“Protection to the Rain Maker
Who gives nocturnal sun
We catch The Keep who hide away
We keep our sheep at peaceful bay.
“Forget, small child
Your one true birth
Let the truth die in the flames:
Forget the rain that washed away.
“Sleet and
Rain and all fall down
Soaking deep
into the ground
Far beneath
and through the mud
Death be
bold and river run.
“The Rain Maker was chosen that night, a woman of hight stature
and long
standing with the children of the Rain Maker. She performed her
job well and settled for
an earlier retirement once she had chosen her sucessor, believing him
to be better equiped
for the job than herself. To all our knowledge, she had stopped
taking the poison in order
that she might return peacefully to a normal life the next time the
world was changed.
And thus she entered the world again as Danielle Sawyer, and married
soon after Jason
Kevitt, assuming his last name to seal the marriage.
“At the time some doubts to our mission of ordering what we belived
nature could
not were creeping into my mind and taking root. Soon after Danielle
and Jason’s
daughter Janet was born, our old Rain Maker started exhibiting signs
of a mental
breakdown. To me, all the evidence, dug up in my spare time for
fear of being accused
disloyal, pointed to Danielle’s work as a Rain Maker, the extensive
power she weilded at
the time, as having caused her later breakdown. Niether the less,
it was decided that she
proved thus a security risk, and plan were soon put into developement
for how to erase
her downfall.
“Now, some of the potions that the children of the Rain Maker
take are taken to
keep them from aging as well as to keep them from changing when the
world around
them does. I had been taking these a long time in order that
I might serve the Rain
Makers as long as possible, but strange affects from them were beginning
to toll on me.
A few years ago, I was convinced to join The Keep, and brought with
me much
knowledge of our enemy, such as the song that I have many a time sung
parts to you, Lost
Time.
“Your mother, Janet was once a Rain Maker, and while she let lived,
her life was
stopped by her own children. They caused her to die with her
husband in an accident, an
accident you do not remember because it is not a part of your original
life. Having had
access to the poison, I’m sure your mother must have given it to you.”
“She did...”
“And so you are here.”
“And so... you are here. I remember my mother and
how
my father died
originally. You still wish to know my dreams?”
“Go on.”
“She killed him 16 years ago. She was fairly insane
by then, I guess. She buried
him carefully in the backyard, and moved us to a secluded, country
farm with tons of blue
grass. That’s why the river of red, that is why the blue
grass, that is why the eagle, and
that is why the rose with deadly silver tips.”
“If I could go back and make the world natural again, perhaps
even that would not
have happened.”
“Perhaps I would not have even been born.”
“That is why we can only hope to stop further changes. We
can’t go back and try
to fix whatever has happened, for taht would be playing God as much
as the Rain Maker
does.”
“Who is the Rain Maker now?”
“Our lovely neighbor, Daniel. Daniel, meaning like Danielle, ‘God is my judge.’”
“What could The Keep possibly hope to do against all this?” You
must be as lost
as I.
“Grow in numbers and try to tell people about it without getting
compeltly
extinguished. It seems as if everytime we make a difference,
time is meddled with again
and all our efforts are erased- all except the people who are of The
Keep.”
“The Keep... it always lives here?”
“This is a natural cave that the Rain Maker abandoned. It’s
the biggest and safest
place.”
“Doesn’t it ever change with everything else?”
“Sometimes we end up with bears sleeping beside us, yes...”
He did not look around as he said this, but surely he must have known
the reason I
asked the question. Life still vibrated throughout, but subtle
things had changed, giving it
a familar air of unreality. For instances, there was no longer
carpet beneath our feet. He
must have noticed this, and noticed the drastic change in temperature
from almost warm
to below freezing. He did not look up around us, but he must
have noticed. “What will
we do now? All your efforts have been erased again.”
“Hopeless or not, we start over, my lady.”
~~~
Characters:
Gerad
Gretta
Halfire
Janet Kevitt
Merci
Merci's Cat
Rain Maker
~~~~
*It cracks me up to think "My mother is a fish (As I Lay Dying)" when I read that sentance. Thankyou, William Faulkner. ^_^
See also, "Lost
Time," the poem contained within this story.