Summerhill (11 page)

The dog felt himself drawn breath—

—and then he caught the scent of smoke—

Ten

Willpower

—and then he saw Katherine, wide-eyed and panicked against a backdrop of pure, pale blue.

“Summerhill!” she cried out, her hands grabbing him by the shoulders to shake him. “Mr. Summerhill, come on, snap out of it! I can’t—”

The dog’s sudden and total loss of balance made him topple to one side, which in turn made Katherine lose her grip on him. He lashed his tail to help regain his sense of equilibrium, but it wasn’t quite enough. Just before he fell over, Katherine grabbed hold of his arm with both hands and hauled him back upright.

He panted for breath and got his bearings. He was inside the nevereef, in the field just beyond the swampy forest, the sun-blur glowing overhead, cold air tickling the insides of his nose and ears. The afterimages of the nighttime stars had disappeared, but the tingle of smoke still lingered in his nostrils.

“Are you all right?” Katherine asked as she took a few more moments to make sure Summerhill wasn’t going to suddenly pitch over again. “You just started staring off into space.” A sheepish look crossed her face. “And then your shirt caught on fire.”

For a second, Summerhill froze in alarm before seeing that he clearly wasn’t on fire anymore. He patted his front and looked down at himself, and spotted his breast pocket, the fabric scorched black, barely still attached to the rest of the shirt.

Katherine swallowed a lump in her throat. “I tried to put it out as fast as I could, but in the process, I think I may have broken your watch.” She coughed quietly. “Sorry.”

Summerhill pulled the pocket watch out and inspected it. He wiped soot and ash from the outside, then opened it up. The face was smashed, and one of the hands jiggled loose inside. The picture of the otter had burned up, leaving only charred bits of paper around the edges.

“It’s not your fault,” Summerhill said. “I think it was the watch that started the fire in the first place.” He used his thumb to rub away more of the black tarnish and read the engraving again:
To One of My Favorites.

“And anyway,” he added, “I’m not sure what good a watch is when it doesn’t even tell the right time.” Filled with sudden revulsion for the thing, the dog pulled his arm back and hurled the watch away into the trees. He heard it hitting some branches, and then, silence.

Katherine scuffed her feet against the ground anxiously. Summerhill gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “What we need now is to find a way out of this place.” He turned away from the forest and faced the open expanse of rolling hills and gently blowing grass.

He began to march in that direction, with Katherine close behind him. As he walked, he tore the ruined pocket from his shirt, and was relieved to see that the fire hadn’t burned through the fabric underneath to his fur and skin. The distraction caused by his disjointed daydream had ruined his ability to appreciate the beautiful landscape for the time being. He hoped that would pass.

“So,” Katherine said, breaking the awkward silence after a few moments, “the fire notwithstanding, what happened to you back there?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just... stopped,” Katherine said. “Your eyes were wide open, but you couldn’t seem to see me or hear me, not even after your pocket burst into flames.”

Briefly reliving what he’d experienced in those few moments made Summerhill feel the pangs of heartbreak. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I must have just spaced out.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re not hurt. Or mad.” Katherine quickened her pace so that she overtook Summerhill and could turn to look him in the eye. “Are you sure you’re feeling all right, though? Do you want to stop and rest? Maybe eat something?”

Summerhill shook his head. “No. I want to focus on getting out of here. That needs to stay our top priority.”

Katherine started to lag behind again. “Mr. Summerhill, I don’t mean to sound negative, but what if there isn’t a way out of this place? What if it comes down to the two of us needing to survive down here?”

“There’s a way out,” Summerhill insisted. He’d come close to snapping at her, but caught himself at the last moment. None of this was her fault. “There’s got to be. I just know it.”

“Oh, hey, something else you just know. There’s a surprise. And just what makes you say that this time?”

Summerhill whirled around and leveled his narrow snout at Katherine’s face with a snarl. “Because I’m meant for something important!” His fur bristled, his ears went fully erect, and his lips peeled back to reveal his sharp canine teeth.

Katherine’s mouth dropped as she staggered half a step back, and Summerhill immediately clapped both of his hands over his muzzle and laid his ears back. He saw her hand twitch a fraction of an inch closer to her holstered revolver, but either the motion was subconscious or she thought better of herself, because she didn’t reach for it.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” Summerhill said. “I don’t know where that came from.” And he really didn’t. He wasn’t even sure who or what he was, so what would give him any cause to think he was important? Other than his running theory that he’d been imprisoned, and that certainly didn’t bode well.

The shock faded from Katherine’s face, and she sighed as she breathed into her cupped hands. “No, it’s all right,” she said as she straightened back up. “I shouldn’t have provoked you like that. I—”

Katherine kept talking, but Summerhill tuned her out. He set one hand on his stomach, feeling nauseous and lightheaded. His eyes scrunched shut, and his fur stood on end again, a shivering sensation running over his body. His stomach gnawed at itself and his torso grew cold and stiff.

“Mr. Summerhill?” Katherine’s voice cut through the haze surrounding Summerhill’s head. “Is it happening again?” She snapped her fingers in front of his eyes. He was so disoriented that the only way he could show her that he was still responsive was to hold up one of his hands.

The nausea and chills were joined by a growing sense of dread. Summerhill’s ears popped upright and he snapped his head to one side and looked across the field, back towards the forest. “The watch,” he said. “Oh, god, I need to get the watch back.” Without waiting for Katherine to acknowledge him, he ran for the trees.

Running was difficult; he was dizzy and his legs came close to giving out. Katherine called after him, but he didn’t process her words. Momentum carried him forward even as he lost balance, but he turned it into a controlled fall until he finally landed on his hands and knees a few yards into the forest.

His fingers scrabbled madly at the dirty, leaf-covered forest floor. “It’s got to be somewhere. We have to find it.”

Katherine had come to a stop next to him. “Mr. Summerhill, slow down,” she begged. “What do you need a broken pocket watch for?”

“I need it back,” Summerhill whimpered. “I don’t think I was supposed to lose it.”

“Is this even where you threw it?”

The dog lifted his head up and looked around at the trees. None of them seemed familiar. “I don’t know. But I threw it somewhere.” Placing his nose against the ground, he started to crawl forward, sniffing as he went, hoping to catch some trace of metal or fire.

Katherine padded after him, her feet crunching through the dry, nondescript leaves. “Mr. Summerhill, I’m not even sure this is the same forest we came out of. I mean, it is, but it isn’t. I—you know what I mean.”

With a sigh, Summerhill took another look around. The infuriating half-defined nature of the scenery made it nearly impossible to tell if there was any permanence to the landscape they’d come through earlier. The nonsense trees and made-up foliage felt different than the plants Summerhill had sensed before. “But I need to find it,” the dog whined.

“Mr. Summerhill.” Katherine said, crouched down alongside him. “Please, it’s like you said yourself: we need to find a way out of here, and I don’t think a busted watch is going to help us.”

The truth of Katherine’s words sank in as Summerhill stared out hopelessly over the dark underbrush. His throat clenched up, and his dizziness returned. Part of him was sure that the pocket watch was still out there, somewhere. When he closed his eyes, he could see fur-lined ears and a smile of sympathy and encouragement.

“Can we... Can we just look for a little bit?” he asked. “You and me together?”

Katherine sighed and took another look around the forest floor. “Fine. But only ten minutes. It’s starting to get dark.”

The sun had been high in the sky only a few minutes ago. Of course it would get dark now, when it was was least convenient.

The two spread out and searched. It was uncomfortable, dirty work, with no obvious signs of progress. Summerhill considered the amusing irony of not having any way of telling when ten minutes had passed since they didn’t even have a broken timepiece.

Finally, a combination of darkness and frustration made Summerhill concede before Katherine had to nag him any further to give up. Defeated, he got back to his feet, wiped away the dirt and dead leaves that clung to him, and followed Katherine out of the forest.

Back amidst the open fields with the gently rolling hills, some form of pseudo-night had fallen. Instead of a sun-blur, there was a moon-blur, which gave off enough light to see by. It lacked the eerie quality of real moonlight, and was more like a dimmer version of sunlight. There were no stars, which Summerhill felt was just as well, because thinking about stars right now made him feel worse about having thrown away the pocket watch.

“I think someone used to love me,” he told Katherine.

Katherine didn’t answer right away. “The otter-person in the photograph?” she eventually wagered after a few quiet seconds.

“That’s my best guess,” Summerhill said. “The watch was engraved with ‘
To One of My Favorites,’
which... okay, now that I think about it, that seems like a weird thing to say to someone you’re in love with.”

“Maybe it’s not that weird,” Katherine said. “There are cultures back on Earth where having multiple lovers is accepted and encouraged.” She let out a chuckle. “I mean, mine’s not one of them, but I’ve heard of way weirder things in my time aboard the
Nusquam
.”

Summerhill sighed. “Maybe that’s why I feel so bad for throwing it away? Because he gave it to me.”

“But you didn’t have it with you before we fell down here, did you?”

“No, I didn’t,” Summerhill said. “At least, I don’t think I did.” He pressed his palms against the sides of his head as he kept walking. Did he or didn’t he have a watch with him when he left the World of the Pale Gray Sky? “I just wish I knew who I was.”

Katherine set a hand on Summerhill’s shoulder. The two stopped walking for a little while, both of them standing there in the open field, neither saying a word.

“Come on,” Summerhill said after shaking off another attack of guilt before it could take root. “Let’s keep going.”

“Right,” Katherine said. “I hope it gets light again soon, though.”

Night had fallen while Summerhill had been desperately searching the dark forest floor. Maybe that was because his fear and anxiety had colored in that part of the world’s details, or maybe it had all been a coincidence. It was worth trying to fix, though.

Summerhill looked around the dimly lit field as he walked, trying to imagine them as they’d looked in the faux sunlight. He called up his mental imagery of what he imagined New Zealand looked like. He tried to forget his guilt and sadness at losing his pocket watch.

The guilt and sadness stayed; however, slowly but surely, the light of the blobby moon grew brighter, as if it were hooked up to a dimmer switch that Summerhill could turn very slowly with his mind. The dog wrinkled his brow in concentration. “Katherine,” he mumbled. “Help me out with this?”

“Help you with what?” Katherine then saw the look on Summerhill’s face and looked up. “Oh. Right, then.”

Night gave way to day more quickly. Katherine shook her
head and laughed despite herself. “Depending on what this place can and can’t do with what thoughts are in our heads,” she said,
“this could get very dangerous or very surreal in short order.”

“Possibly both,” Summerhill agreed. “All the more reason to find our way out as soon as we can.”

Katherine hummed, and now she swung her arms as she walked at a new, brisk pace. “I don’t know. It might not be that bad, living somewhere where you can change the view and scenery at will. Where the sun doesn’t rise before you’re ready and where the best nights of your life can last as long as you want them to.”

Summerhill smiled. “We probably can’t control that much,” he pointed out. “Details. Specifics. I mean, there’s clearly a world here that exists outside of what we’re thinking of.”