Chapter Seven

By William Baker

The sunny day had passed, and blue as the turquoise night, the evening air flooded both into Kim’s room and Shane’s mind. An uneasy peace. Shane could feel his mother’s words hanging over him in the most peculiar way, a Godsend caress of matronly cares on the skin as she prayed, 

Shane…that day, the day when you had left home and all the sunshine in my world uprooted and followed you, the only thing that mattered was hoping that you were safe.

An uneasy peace, indeed, as snowflake ashes were falling from the grassfires nearby in the county lit ablaze in the summer air, emergency helicopters droning away joining the stars with their flickering lights. Kim could even feel words of her mother as well, shrew as she was, digging up love that had all but disappeared from the farthest reaches of her mind. Kim, I could hardly begin to tell you that life is harsh.

  

And in the cool night air, lilting parables seeped into the room around the girl and along the legs around the boy walking toward the beginning.

Shane, may you always walk in the light…

The darkness closed in, the world cinched in a velvet, desert evening as the building of red masonry loomed ahead.

Kim, but if I had only one wish, it would be that every harsh claw of the world would lift out of you. And you would keep crying tears of joy that water your soul and help something new to grow where nothing would before.

It seemed, that for an instant, a glinting sunray caught one of her tears, and a beautiful bird with rainbow plumage had fluttered in on the rainbow refracted from it. A lovely bird with a lovely call and the most captivating eyes in the world, a watercolor painting beside the silvery strand of prayer that urged Shane onward into the night.

...and realize that there are many things in this world you will not understand.

Inside the building lobby, all walls and floors covered in absolutely spotless matte black tile, Shane stumbled his way through the foyer as the euphoria and confusion took hold of him, a single panel of gloomy figures positioned in a semi-circle around him. 

Around him. 

Nearing him. 

Prying away at him, oh God! He could feel them under his skin. Hot acid behind his eyes and his teeth turning to ice and shattering in his skull! God make it stop!!

Kim, lights will die for you in this place. But my greatest love and greatest tragedy for you lay in speaking words so sweet as I say goodbye, as you fade away from me.

The minds were calling out to him.

Welcome to the beginning.

Immediately, Shane Solomon cried out writhing on the floor, the slippery tile suddenly bristling underneath him and turning cool as the silver thread of his mother’s voice leading him. Then the minds ceased and withdrew, pain stinging like fire ants as he picked himself up, finding himself out in the middle of the foreign plain with little more than a rickety lean-to and a long dead weeping willow to keep him company.

And strangely enough, if only for the briefest of moments, he was at peace.

Gasping, he saw the aircraft, a fat pencil hovering overhead. And it opened to reveal another figure of refined taste, wearing a doctor’s coat, a man described to him so many times to him.

But by who?

A note came fluttering down from the ship as the figure levitated smoothly to the turf.

Shane hurriedly picked up the yellow piece of paper. It read,

From Olive,

By the way.  My name is really Keah.  I need your help.
No.  You are not going crazy.  But yes, keep going to your counseling sessions.
No.  Do not bring this up to Dr. Gustufson.   He would not understand.

The unusual man of refined taste stepped out of the mist and mire, irk and ire of dust stirred up by the hovering ship. And he bore the stenciled tag that was the sum of all fears. The fescue and grama grasses, entire seas of them basking under nightfall, cool as Gethsemane, stilled and parted for him it seemed. Their eyes fixated on each other. An appalling thing happened.

A reed plucked from a stagnating pond began writing into the siding of the abandoned shanty. It floated and sickeningly cavorted in the air, propelled by some unseen masterful and artful hand. The name was inscribed. And what a name… To look upon it was a thing of madness. For the sigil was terrible to read as it softly glowed a mute red in the wood rot. Their gaze was still unbroken.

The growingly elemental voice, but the voice of no man, uttered its prospects. “That matters little… Shane, isn’ it?” Now cowering in the shadow of the willow, Shane shielded his face from the ember fires glowing hellishly against the horizon. The stranger stepped forward. Shane immediately knew Kim had told him.

The name stenciled into the coat stole Shane’s tongue from his mouth. “Dr. Gustufson. M.D.”

A strange and ethereal thing happened among the grasses at the flick of a device in the doctor’s hand, a gray-green aura touching the tips of the blades, and leeching down, down, and out in to the quick of the earth. The roots began to quiver, filched moonbeams steaming from the ground with a curious, lilting song both devious and evil.

A sudden stillness.

And all flared into light, the willow and surrounding plant blades catching fire as a portal tear began to open. Shane covered his eyes and balled up against the brightness. Hearing only the doctor’s words waxing around the powerful device’s humming, the air split with the words,

Shane, Shane, Shane. Keah was right about one thing. You need so much help, and not just against me. However, she was direly mistaken in this. I understand you, and I will soon understand Kim. And my understanding is to be feared beyond all measure.

Suddenly, the world melted into the air as a portal began encompassing him, sky and earth becoming flailing dust grains, without form and void. However, the doctor remained intact and strolled toward the cringing boy. He was a hungry shadow, the angry night, and fear without frith.

It’s been plaguing you since the rainbow girl, Brightlee, brought it up near you; whether you’re aware of it or not on a fringe of consciousness a far cry away. That’s all it takes, you know. A Heisenberg thought to collapse manifolds beyond Planck time and Planck space to bring you to this very place. Just as planned. The door called you here. And yet, you approach it without understanding. This too is something to be feared beyond all measure.

~

The silver threads had now whisked Kim away into Brightlee’s arms, Brightlee shouldering the weight across Camp Peace toward the brick building, which had at this time begun to glow a horrid a gray-green hue. Keah followed after with Tate bringing up the rear.

No… No, no. Is that?

A debilitated nod emerged out of the oozing seep of the glow mixing with the night like oil with water.

Tate took hold of Kim.

One of them led him here.

You don’t mean…

I told you he didn’t belong.

Kim stirred groggily.

Tate looked at her.

Brightlee and Keah stopped dead in their tracks and gave him a look somewhere between rage and deepest sorrow that no living person dares to dream.

She can’t watch this. Don’t you make her watch, Tate. You can't make her watch! You hear us?

Tate didn’t say a word and looked at the brick building, some of the bricks at the top rumbling out of place and falling to the dirt pathways below.

The silver threads of prayer mingled together:

…if I had only one wish…realize that there are many things… greatest love and greatest tragedy… in this world you will not understand… crying tears of joy that water your soul…

Tate?!

Tate planted the softest of merciful kisses on Kim’s forehead. Flakes of ash from the grassfires outlined and stuck to the moisture of the kiss, giving it the appearance of being seared there.

Solomon didn’t belong. You said it yourself.

Utter silence, save the undulating low concussions from the center of the camp.

And there isn’t time to spare, or the pathway will be lost.

~

Gloom among the cleanest of the clean matte black tiles again. Dark as the heart of obsidian flint. Silence. Silent as the falling of early snow. And a single strain broke the frail quiet, a throbbing mote of heartbeats in Shane’s chest.

His low breathing slightly stirred the dust from his face and when he opened his eyes, there stood Dr. Gustufson, quite at ease…in front of a single, wooden door, the most remarkable thing about it being it’s most unremarkable nature.

Have you ever just gazed at it? Marveled at the simplicity of complexity, a one dimensional manifold lengthen and stretched past all fathomable mathematics into a single doorway? Imagined just what may lie on the other side?

Shane coughed a bit, freshly reintegrated from the portal and unable to get an unusual flavor of strawberries and tin foil out of his mouth. Then far beyond his own will to resist, Dr. Gustufson beckoned him to rise and approach the door, causing the boy to smooth his hand against the frame…a splinter driving deeply into his finger.

Of course you haven’t. And ignorance, sadly, will not give way to bliss.

The sound of footsteps thundered down the way, the doctor completely unfazed by the sudden appearance of four young faces, one newly emerged from unconsciousness.

Shane broke into a feverish and now chilling sweat as he turned around. And to his waking eyes, there was Kim staring a thousand yard stare at the soul she once loved dearly…

…at the soul’s injured finger…

…at the lovely soul who was beginning to rot away and turn to dust before God and everyone there.

~

Not much sound passed through the glass pane separating the cries for mercy and guttural yelps  from the restraining sounds as they kept her from shattering the pane with her hands. Muffled voices barely passed through the window as well as they progressed down the hall and stairwell, voices uttered just so softly to escape the doctor’s attentive ears.

The pathway is set.

But at what expense, Tate? Did it ever occur to you that this might not work?

Tate said not a word as they escaped to the far corner of the camp and clambered into Shane’s car, the silvery threads still guiding them patching themselves together to shield them as they drove off.

Kim, I could hardly begin to tell you…something new will grow where nothing would before…

   

And Kim finished with the final words as Tate, Brightlee, and Keah glanced at each other in that knowing way, communicating that darker days would come before the dawn. But a dawn star of hope lay there embedded in the vacuum. It need only shine.

Snipping the silver threads of Heisenberg thoughts, she fell into the seat cushion heavy with Shane’s tragic scent. And the threads began to knit into a new face and making a new note not yet readable on the door to her vestibule of dreams. She spoke the final words to their mothers’ prayers.

…all the sunshine in my world uprooted and followed you. And now the only thing that matters is the hope of safety beyond the door. A new face grown from tears and sown by agony. A light has died for me in this place. But my greatest love and greatest hope lies in speaking words so sweet as I say goodbye to peace, that it will not fade from me.