Otherworld (35 page)

 

Less north of Houston, Abby Diaz prayed a simple prayer in her playroom while her mother found new tears to cry.

“Dear God. Say hello to Daddy for me. I miss him a lot. Please let Mommy not cry. And please let Mr. Lammer find the bad man. He is very bad. Amen.”

 

“The beginning of words is the end of all sadness,” Mike heard Malcam say, and his cryptic proverb sounded as if spoken through a long tunnel. The sound was mechanical, amplified, but vibratory and tinny.

Opening his eyes, Mike found himself in an actual ocean, adrift in actual waves. The water was crystalline blue but translucent; Mike couldn't see his feet.

Stretched out ahead of him, not forty yards, floated the shore of a small island. Its sandy beach sparkled in the sun, an infinity of microscopic quartz crystals reflecting dazzling rays of light into the atmosphere. The entire effect was that of a giant halo hovering over the beach.

Energized by this beatific sight, Mike swam eagerly toward the shore. He found the task practically effortless. The waves carried him closer and closer ever so gently until at last he set his hands and feet upon the grainy ground. He crawled around on it a bit—scampered actually, dithering about like a playful child.

Engulfed by emotions both of the numinous and (oddly) of the primitive, Mike keeled over, squirming on his back in the sand. The sky looked closed somehow, a pale, fading water-colored blue on a stone ceiling high above.

Tilting his head backward, he encountered the upside-down vision of a gate in the distance and, before it, an expanse of emerald grass. He quickly rose and traipsed off, soon finding his bare feet pressing on a mossy lawn, spongy beneath his toes. The grass was short and curled oddly, the blades woven together. Looking up, he saw Malcam standing at the gate. He looked more like a man than before. The visitor wore a dapper black suit with a neatly knotted tie tucked into the coat's buttoned fold.

“Here is the place you have always dreamed of, my friend.” Malcam stepped aside, opening the gate door dramatically.

Inside, Mike discovered a world of trees and plants, bushes and vines. They were greens of every shade with leaves of every shape and texture. The mossy lawn continued in the garden, and giant tree trunks rose out of it, rushing to the opaque sky. The trunks were all grays and rusty browns. The garden as a whole struck Mike as unreal, as a vision pale yet nonetheless inviting.

Strolling through the garden, Mike encountered people. They were milling about aimlessly and never seemed to notice his presence. They were spaced apart; no one walked with another. Alone, they paced, staring far ahead of themselves like pleasant zombies. Mike started to approach one, a lady with blonde hair. Like all the others, she wore normal “thisworld” clothing.

“Don't talk to them, Michael,” Malcam said.

“Our presence doesn't disturb them?”

“No. They don't even know we're here.”

Entranced by their behavior, Mike stopped and watched them a while. Doing so, he realized that each person seemed familiar to him. He didn't know their names or remember where he knew them from, but he recognized each face. Without Malcam's prompting, Mike knew these were all people he had encountered in his lifetime. He recognized his fourth-grade teacher. She walked mere feet from a teller at his bank.

“Beyond that wall is the inner garden,” Malcam said, and he gestured to the right.

Excitement flooded Mike's soul, for he fully believed the secret to life's happiness lay inside that inner realm of the garden.

“To happiness,” Malcam toasted with an invisible drink.

The first step was the hardest, but after taking that initial forward movement, Mike broke into a full trot, heading for the end of a great stone wall. Malcam trailed him closely, moving with little effort.

Etched on the smooth stones of the wall were the words: THE BEGINNING OF WORDS IS THE END OF ALL SADNESS. Mike remembered them as the mystery shared by Malcam upon his entrance to the otherworld.

Reaching the end of the wall, Mike spun around it and halted. The grass on the other side was the same as the outside, but its color was darker, less distinct. Mike saw before him a smooth expanse of bluish gray turf rising into a low slope. At the top of the small hill were a few trees. None looked real; that is to say, none looked as real as those in this world.

Reality ceased to exist for Mike. Malcam was taking him further and further into the dark hole inside himself. Mike always believed nothing lived inside. He now saw differently.

Excitement again overwhelmed him. Among the trees wandered more people from his life, but these were his closest friends. Robbie and his parents seemed to walk together, strolling side by side across the low ridge. Coming closer, Mike saw Dr. Bering who, in the “thisworld” sat across from the limp Mike in his study, but now scampered about the hill. Bering was the most animated of the few people, but Mike had not the curiosity to wonder why. He was more struck by how few his friends really were. Only four: his parents, Robbie, and the now dancing Bering.

Aghast at this sad truth, Mike eagerly scanned the landscape for Molly.

“Does Molly live here too?” he asked Malcam.

“Perhaps she's in the darker valley,” Malcam said. “That is where we must go next. Here are your closest friends, chum.”

“Everyone looks so distant, so vacant. Except Dr. Bering, I mean.”

“Remember that Samuel is, for all intents and purposes, on this journey with you. He is not actually inside as you are, but he's the only soul in touch enough to talk to.”

“Excellent place, isn't it?” Bering suddenly said. He danced a little jig.

“Land of my dreams,” Mike responded cheerfully.

“All dreams are imagined, my dear Michael,” Bering said. “This place … this place is real.”

“Now you have a picture of the only truth that exists,” Malcam added. “Your life is all that matters. As Samuel has discovered, it is up to you to find joy within yourself.”

“Do I stay here forever?” Mike asked.

“Really,” Malcam answered, “this is merely the starting point. We are in the beginning. Your entire life, your entire world, is this garden. What you choose to do here is your choice for your life in the day-to-day world.”

“And the dark valley?” Mike asked.

“Across the ridge, on the other side. That is where you will make your choice. We shall travel there shortly,” Malcam said.

“Now?”

“Do what thou wilt,” Malcam answered, a sneer forming on his lips.

Plodding forward, leaving Bering behind, Mike ascended the hill to its apex. Looking down, he noticed the grass darken before him. There were more trees in the dark valley, which wasn't really a valley at all, but a wide ditch. It was really just the other side of the hill.

Approaching the edge, where the grass's blue gray moss became slate blue, rough-edged turf, he saw a raised altar made of granite a few yards off. He recognized it as a replica of the one he'd seen in his first dizzying encounter with Malcam.

“Right there,” said Malcam, “is where your choice is made.”

“Are you going to show me where Molly is?” Mike asked.

“Do you really want to see her, Mike? Think carefully about this. This woman, this person you say you love abandoned you, wrote you off. You stand on the verge of something greater now. You can have the life you know you really want. Free of fear and worry. Full of pleasure and liberty. Able to do whatever you want. Do you really want to trade the end of all sadness for the person who has cultivated the most sadness within you?”

“I want to see her,” Mike insisted.

“See for yourself,” Malcam said with a disappointed sigh. He gestured toward a cluster of trees.

Entangled in their intertwining branches hung a motionless Molly. Mike ran to her. He tried to wrestle her free to no avail.

“Lower the branches,” Mike said to Malcam. Tears flowed from his eyes.

“Our journey is almost done, chum,” Malcam said. “Worthless tasks are steps backward.”

“Save her!”

“The riddle is over. The end of words is here. Now is the beginning of all sadness.”

Malcam's voice grew more sinister. He grasped Mike by the collar and dragged him wriggling back to the altar. Mike could not break free, and he watched helplessly as the branches writhed, tightening their thorny hold on Molly.

“No!”

“Hush, hush. It will all be over in a jiff,” Malcam said.

The visitor propped Mike up in front of him, facing the altar. Mike saw himself lying on top. His otherworldly twin was naked.

“This,” Malcam instructed, “is naked and unashamed. Don't listen to the others. They will insist it can't be this way—at least, not in your time. But we can end all that, can't we, chum?”

Malcam placed a dagger in Mike's trembling hand. Try as he might, Mike couldn't thrust it away.

“The knife can only complete one service, Michael. Don't be afraid.” Malcam grabbed Mike's wrist. “It's easy. Trust me.”

The air grew thicker, and Mike heard a multitude of voices all around him. They were saying nasty things, things he couldn't understand, but he knew they meant him harm.

“Easy now,” Malcam hissed. Something like the forked tongue of a snake tickled Mike's inner ear. “Easy now. Just step forward.”

Mike resisted.

“Just step forward. It's ever so easy, chum. Nothing to it.”

Mike inexplicably raised the knife over his replica on the altar. Malcam smiled. “Easy does it,” he said.

The cacophonous drone of voices intensified, filling the air with a litany of unholy words in unknown tongues. Mike cast a terrified glance around. What once looked mysterious now struck him as miserific. The unreality of the garden, once a curiosity, appeared freakish, exaggerated, a horrific impostor of a real land, a real garden someplace else.

“Now bring that handsome arm down,” Malcam said, “and free yourself.”

Before he could obey, Mike's will broke free. At the same instant, a blinding light broke in from above, splitting the ceiling of the otherworld's finite sky. In a dazzling unity of movement and happenstance, Malcam shrunk back from the light, grabbing at the ground and wincing in pain, while Mike dropped the dagger and screamed, “No!” The light filled the otherworld, disintegrating it. Mike felt himself tumbling back through the tunnel through which he had entered.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself back in Bering's study. He was alone, but he heard the imprecation of an invisible presence. Mike pitched forward and vomited. Shaken, sweating, he rose to his feet and fled the room, fled Bering's house completely. Leaving his car behind, he broke into a terrified sprint all the way home.

He never noticed the very real dagger he had left behind on the study floor.

 

Back in Trumbull that night, Graham confronted an angry crowd of protesters on the steps of the courthouse.

“You've got to take us seriously,” shouted Rick Bardwell. “We've had enough of the lies!” His son cowered behind him.