Fantastical Ramblings (22 page)

Was I the second person in this picture, or someone else?”

“I’ve fixed a nice stew for our supper,” she said. Sure
enough a cast iron cauldron hung in the fireplace above the glowing embers of a
wood fire.

I couldn’t smell either the burning branches or the stew,
yet a quick peek showed me that it burbled happily.

The woman looked longingly at the stew then back at me. “I
don’t suppose you’ll wait until after we’ve eaten?”

I knew better than that. All the way back to Persephone and
Hades the legend warned against eating anything in an Otherworld. Good way to
get trapped there forever.

Had this old woman eaten something here long ago? Or did
something else tether her?

“Show me the mistake you made; the mistake I will make.”

“Very well,” she sighed. Slowly, as if arthritic hips ached,
she made her way to the picture window. The only window in the place.

Out of symmetry.

My heart started to race. Something was very wrong here. I
held my breath as she worked a lever to raise the shutter.

A different quality of light filtered in from the bottom, as
the single plank of wood lifted outward from the bottom. Reddish hues permeated
the bright and pleasant room, casting an ominous glare.

I looked to the fire to see if it had suddenly flared.

No such luck.

When I returned my gaze to the window, I gasped. Blood red
plasma swirled outside, globules of ebony swam in the eddies, creating
whirlpools. They fought the tides, trying to forge their own path through the
energy streams.

My mind drifted outward, following one large black blob. I
felt the heat, the push, the pulse of the plasma. It swirled in echo of my
speeding heartbeat. It pulled me out of my body, demanding I join the fight.

Then the big black thing shifted orientation and opened one
huge eye that nearly filled its being. A consciousness rode there; an
intelligence.

I’d encountered that eye before.

Shocked, I took a step backward, forcing myself to look away
and break the link.

“Wh... what is that?” I whispered harshly, not certain I
spoke aloud. The pulsing in my head masked any other noise I might have made.

“That is us.”

“I don’t understand?”

“That is what we made of the world. I did, you will. We
thought we were helping, bringing beings and energy from Otherworlds to our
own, to fight pollution, to raise a spiritual consciousness, to protect and
preserve our beloved gorge as well as the rest of the world.”

“You let the wrong energy in.”

“Yes.” She slammed down the lever and the shutter blocked
out the malevolence. “Time we ate.”

“This cabin, the grass, and trees, they are constructs. How?
Why?”

“I carved this little space out of the primordial mass. This
is all that is left of Earth, the universe as you know it.”

“You survived. Why bother? Aren’t you lonely?”

“Incredibly. But I knew you would come. I had to survive
until you came.” She shuffled over to the stew pot and grabbed a ladle from a
hook set into the stone work. In grasping it she used only her fingers, curving
her thumb across the top of her knuckles.

I held tools the same way.

Another shock washed over me like an incoming storm wave. I
fought to breathe.

“You’re me!”

“Finally.”

“An older version of me.”

“Time runs different in Faery. I’ve had a devil of a time
keeping this place linked to the maze. Time keeps trying to rip it away. Rip
this place away so that you couldn’t cross over, couldn’t learn from your
mistake.”

She set a bowl of stew in front of me. I’d learned in the
field to eat what I could, when I could. No telling when the next meal might
fit into the schedule. Out of habit I flipped the serviette onto my lap and
raised my fork with the same curious grip I’d watched her use. Consciously I
moved my thumb back to a more normal position. Then I looked at the stew again.

No smell equals no appetite.

I set the food back into the bowl and pushed my chair away
from the table. My feet drew me back to the window. I reached for the lever. Fascinated
and repulsed by the horror outside, I couldn’t help myself. I had to see it
again, had to know if this was truly my fate.

“Don’t open that!”

“Why not?” I edged the lever down a fraction. Instantly the
red glare surged around the shutter, filling the room with the fiery glow.

“I’ve seen more than enough of it.” The old woman began
eating her own meal, concentrating on it rather than me or the window.

“I need to know what happened to me at Stonehenge,” I said,
still staring at the swirling red and black chaos outside. Had I raised the
shutter or had it opened completely by itself? Or had the
things
out there manipulated it?

Maybe they’d manipulated me. They had once before.

“You don’t want to know what happened to you. That’s why you
block it from your memory.”

“But I didn’t block it.” My insides began to tremble as I
relived being caught within the same swirling vortex that I watched through the
window. I felt again the pain as jolt after jolt of burning energy shot through
me, pushing me here, pulling me there, yanking at my soul; trying to separate
me from my body.

Because that’s what was out there, the lost souls of those
who took a wrong turn trying to cross over to the Otherworlds.

Mazes are tricky. The paths narrow. They require absolute
concentration to keep your feet within the lines and your mind on your goal. Not
sure of the goal? Your mind wanders. Your balance tilts and suddenly you are on
a different path, though it looks the same but takes you elsewhere.

I thought the chaos had stolen vital pieces of me. Now I
thought different.

“Yes, you blocked it. I’d know what happened if you hadn’t
forced the memory from you. I am you after all.”

“No you aren’t.”

“Now you are being ridiculous.”

“Now I’m being logical. The glass in your knitting only
allows you to watch and listen. It doesn’t let you into my mind. You can guess
a lot from what you see and hear. But you can’t know.” Angrily I pointed outside.
“I remember those things.”

The woman reared away from the scene, kept her eyes on the
fire, which now blazed merrily with new fuel that hadn’t been there a few
heartbeats ago.

“I am you. You are me,” she insisted.

“When I first stepped out of the Stonehenge circle, I
thought you’d stolen my curiosity, my optimism,
my joie de vivre
. That’s why I had to come find you. To get them
back. But, you know, if you had truly stolen them, I’d never have come. I
wouldn’t have needed to know what lay on the other side of this maze.”

As I spoke, a gradual transformation washed over the woman. Her
face morphed into a skeletal reflection of the horrible energy outside. Her
body elongated and thinned. She gave off a blinding glare.

I threw an arm over my eyes. As I had at Stonehenge.

The blackness, the inability to see what she/he/it wanted me
to see saved me. Gave me the strength to return to my own time and place.

“You can’t hide from me. You can’t keep me here any longer.”
The thing’s voice tolled in deep tones, like a mournful ocean buoy. “I touched
your mind at Stonehenge. I linked to you so that you would have to come find
me. Rescue me.”

The resonance of that voice masked direction and distance
from me.

“You couldn’t steal anything from me, so you laid a blanket
of energy over the good things in my mind. You hid them from me. But you also
hid my thoughts, my true self, from yourself.”

A sense of increased heat from my right. The thing moved
toward the doorway. Slowly, at the same speed the chaos drifted about.

“I won’t let you leave me here,” I said, edging blindly
toward the exit myself.

“You have no choice,” it chuckled. “You know the rules of
Faery as well as I do. One person came through the portal, only one can go out.
You came in. I leave. That was the plan all along.”

“I don’t think so.” I pushed all my will power into running.
Running fast. Faster than the Thing. It was still tied to the speed of life in
the chaos. I still had enough humanity to use my burst of adrenaline.

Electric heat seared me from my temple to my heels on the
right side as I passed it. I cried out in pain. Half of me didn’t want to work.

But I kept going. Somehow. Only then did I allow myself to
open my eyes. Vision gave me accuracy.

I stumbled on the steps. The thing caught up with me. But it
didn’t touch me again. Its left side dragged.

We had wounded each other. Full contact might kill us both. Or
throw us through the portal to somewhere else.

I couldn’t take that chance. I had to reach the maze
entrance before it did. I had to have both feet and my body fully inside its
perimeter before it set foot on the path.

Shuffling and dragging, we raced neck and neck.

I kept my eyes on the grass, willing the maze to come back
to my view. The thing might have other senses to detect it.

The grass remained uniformly green. A construct, just like
the rest of the clearing. Cabin and trees merely pieces of energy thrown
together to attract me.

Or to house the thing. An eternity of symmetry and beauty
when it was born out of chaos and horror.

“You were exiled here,” I called as my feet found an
imperfection in the grass, a slight ridge. The edge of maze. I had to stall
while I sought the beginning.

“The portal was constructed to send you here,” I continued. “You
and you alone. This is your punishment for wreaking havoc in my world.”

It felt along the grass with its own feet, seeking the same
opening I did.

“So I let loose a little plague.” The black and red energy
that surged around its amorphous form rippled as it shrugged.

“A plague that wiped out over thirty percent of Europe’s
population.”

Was that a break in the ridge my toes had found? Yes! I
tried to orient myself to where I had emerged. Beginning and end were not the
same.

I had come out under the oak tree. Now I stood in the center
of the clearing.

I moved on, working my way clockwise around the outside of
the maze. I had to enter where I had exited. I had to walk it the exact
opposite direction as before.

The thing shouted in triumph as it found the break.

“Stupid, human. Just like all the rest. I eliminated the
weak and wasteful ones. Only the strongest and most intelligent survived. And
you aren’t one of them.” It chortled and took a step forward. The maze remained
dormant.

I found the other end of the maze at last. Drawing in one
deep breath, I stepped inside. The instant my second foot set down on the path
I knew I’d chosen correctly. Restoring energy tingled against my soles.

Across from me the Thing continued to berate me and my kind.
I seemed to wander aimlessly.

Before me, the pathway blazed white against a green
background. Carefully I followed where it led, keeping my eyes and
concentration down. I had to ignore the Thing. I had to force it to remain
here.

“An Exorcist first banished me to the wilderness. But it
wasn’t a wilderness long. The natives thrived under my tutelage, making war
upon their more plentiful neighbors to the west,” the Thing sneered.

I kept walking. “Explorers, missionaries, or devout fur
traders, someone found you. And found you out. They constructed the maze and
banished you once more. This time you went to hell.”

My perception of the Thing faded. The grass beneath my feet
turned brown and brittle. The wavering images of trees and cabin shrank to low
clumps of sage and rabbitbrush.

“One person’s heaven is the next person’s hell,” I said. My
voice fell flat, fully contained by the intricacies of the maze. “Hell is all
around us. Only a step away.”

The Thing could reach out and touch people through the mazes
of the world. It could suck away your life’s energy if you let it. But it could
only escape through
this
maze.

I stumbled and fell forward into Wendell Follmoth’s arms. Bright
desert sun beat against my eyes. Dry heat wicked sweat away from my skin.

I nearly laughed in relief.

“Monica, where have you been these past three days?” Wendell
asked.

The other grad students and volunteers were so intent on
clearing the last of the dirt and plants from the slab of anomalous rock they
barely noticed my arrival.

“It’s a hoax, Dr. Follmoth. Let the developers destroy it,”
I gasped. My eyes sought the bulky bulldozers and other arcane equipment one
hundred yards away.

“Monica, I think it’s real. Look at it, it’s genuine!” he
protested.

“Destroy it now!” I insisted.

“This discovery will set the archaeological world on its ear.
Your career is made and mine revitalized.”

“Destroy it now, or destroy yourself. It’s an elaborate
hoax.” I fixed him with a stern gaze. “Let the developers wreck it or I will
drop the first charge of dynamite on it myself.”

“Are you sure.”

“Absolutely. Universes are kept separate for a reason. Risking
a crossover with a ritual maze is more dangerous than you can imagine.” I made
myself take the last step, fully separating myself from the lure of the path. Then
I walked over to the first huge yellow machine and fired up the engine.

~THE END~

When Alma Alexander first asked me to contribute to her
anthology
The River
published by Dark
Quest Books, she showed me a map of a river that would become the table of
contents. I knew in that moment that I had to write a story from the point of
view of the water. And what other water would I want to write about than the
waterfalls of the Columbia River Gorge, my spiritual home.

<<>>

Joy! I slide around rocks and under low hanging branches. I
tumble and summersault. Then I pause, gathering my nerve, and dive over the
cliff, spraying outward. My droplets catch the tail of an unwary blue jay. He
squawks and flits upward, scolding me. I laugh with him and continue my free
fall. As I pass the cliff face I pick at a crack, etching my signature a little
deeper, sculpting timeless designs into basalt hardened by fire and time.