The Caterpillar King (17 page)

“This is all second nature to you. No big
deal. Ending this girl’s life, sucking her dry. What about you,
tough guy?” I nodded to low and gruff.

“We need food,” he said. “We eat many small
meals. Today, we have one big meal. Big meal is better.”

I looked at Madeline. She was resting
peacefully in the center. “He just called you a big meal. You’re
fine with this? This is what you expected out of life?”

“They like me,” she said. “They appreciate
me. Maybe it’s not what I expected…but it’s what I want.”

The Little Duck had been brainwashed. For
all I knew, the whole world had been brainwashed. And when the
whole world’s against you, you’re done. I slumped down against the
wall.

“But I do not like this.” I looked up to see
low and gruff speaking. “It is not right.”

“What?” said high-pitched.

“We suffer. But we always suffer. We do not
pass that on to other living creature. I see too many girls…we can
take memory. But not life. Not again.”

That got the Little Duck’s attention.

“Wait…” she said. “You mean I’m not the
first girl?”

Low and gruff let out a coarse laugh. “No,”
he said.

“There’ve been countless,” said
high-pitched. “Always,
this one will save us
.
This one is
the last we’ll ever need.
It starts off well enough. Their
memories sustain us like anyone else’s. But once the memories are
used up, the girls aren’t long for this world. They end up just
another corpse. The king is selling fool’s gold. This time, he’s
built a shrine. He says it’s
our
fault, that we haven’t been
faithful enough, haven’t prayed hard enough. It isn’t true. You’ll
end up dead just like the rest.”

“But…the king said I was special. You told
me…” said the Little Duck.

“Lies,” said low and gruff.

The more he talked, the more I got to like
him.

“We should not be saying such things,” said
high-pitched. “We could be executed for treason.”

“Go ahead,” said low and gruff. “What life
is this, anyway? Steal to save ourselves. Better dead.” He paused.
“We let them go.”

High-pitched looked stunned. “I have a
family,” he said. “If the king sees we haven’t produced
anything…”

Nobody talked for a minute. We were at a
stand-still. But I saw an opening. I’m good at seeing things like
that.

“Seems like an old guy would be a lot more
valuable,” I said. “More memories to consume.”

“Actually,” said high-pitched. “We find
elders’ memories lack the clarity and detail which nourishes-”

“That is not his meaning,” said low and
gruff.

High-pitched looked from him to me. “So what
are you saying?”

“The king gave me some business lessons, and
I took them to heart. How about a trade? You wrap me up, but let
the girl go.”

The Little Duck piped up. “No!” she said. “I
mean…the king said he could feel my power. He’ll be able to tell
the difference.”

“He tells that to all the girls,” said
high-pitched. “As long as the cocoon is big, and there’s a
heartbeat inside, we’ll be fine. But we must start
immediately.”

Madeline shook her head. “You can’t do
this.”

“You’re going to stop me?” I said.

I sat down in the circle next to her. “Wrap
me up, boys,” I said.

“Can’t we find a dog or something? Please,”
said Madeline.

Low and gruff looked around. “I see no dog.
And you?”

High-pitched spoke up. “I don’t approve of
this,” he said. “We are putting the kingdom at risk. The
prophecy-”

“It is a joke,” said low and gruff. “No
truth has ever come from the prophet.”

“But we must respect him…” said
high-pitched.

While they went back and forth, I looked at
the Little Duck. She didn’t move.

“I…” she said. She got a little teary-eyed.
It was pathetic. “None of this should’ve happened. And it’s my
fault. Now I’m supposed to go back up there and live with
this?”

“I need to get some sleep, anyway,” I said.
“I can’t complain.”

She smiled. “When I met you, I thought you
were just another weird, creepy old guy. And…I was right,” she
said. “But you’re more than that, too.”

“This is touching,” I said. “Now get
out.”

“Tell me why you’re doing this. For someone
you hardly even know.”

I thought about that. “I don’t need to know
you well. It’s always been easier to help strangers, at least for
me. There’s no expectation involved, no responsibility. If your
brother’s sick, well, you have to go help your brother. If your mom
is broke, you have to lend her some money. But with a stranger, I
can help or not. It’s my choice. It’s as close to freedom as I can
get.”

“And your “choice” is to be buried
alive?”

“I’ve always wanted someone to pray to me,”
I said.

She laughed. “One more thing. You remember
this?” She pulled out a crumpled slip of paper. She unfolded it. It
said “Castor Blue, Private Investigator.” My old card.

“Take it.” She tried to hand it to me, but I
stopped her.

“It’s yours. Besides, I won’t have much use
for it where I’m going.”

“You’re wrong,” she said. She pushed it into
my hands and clasped hers around mine. “It’s a memory. And maybe…I
don’t know. Maybe it’ll keep you alive for a little while
longer.”

I looked at the card in my hand. “Thanks
kid,” I said. “Now get going. Is there an exit?” I asked the
bugs.

“Yes,” said high-pitched. “Right through
here.” He motioned to a dark spot in the wall.

“Go,” I said.

Madeline stood, but she hesitated. I lay
down on my back and the two caterpillars crawled up onto my face.
They started working their way around my forehead. Feet trampled
across me. It almost tickled. But the string gripped my head like a
thin, tight vice.

Madeline looked back again.

“Take care,” I said.

She nodded. She turned and walked toward the
wall. The caterpillars worked down to my eyes. The last thing I saw
was her long legs walking away from me. It wasn’t a bad way to
go.

21.

I spent two more weeks at the bottom of a
ditch. Including my last ditch stay, that made five weeks total. I
believe that is an unhealthy amount of time to spend underground.
This time, I didn’t even have the sticks and rocks, or Tika, or
anything to distract me. I just had my three gold coins. It wasn’t
much fun at all. But one day, when I was looking up at the sky,
something appeared. It blocked out the most of the light.

“Hello?” I called.

I realized it was a silhouette, and it
looked like it could’ve been a person’s head. The light hit the
person’s hair just so, and I could see it was scruffy and gray. I
was about to call out again, but then whoever it was
disappeared.

“Wait!” I said. But they were already
gone.

Feeling disappointed and a little hopeless,
I started to sit back down. But then I realized somebody was behind
me. With a quick spin, I came to face to face with a tall, dark
man. I held my gold coins up so I could see his face. Much to my
surprise, it was Old Guy.

“Hey!” I said. I couldn’t have been happier
to see him. There are times when anything that brings to mind the
past can put a smile on your face. “What’re you doing here?”

Old Guy pointed at his finger. There was a
gold, glowing ring on it.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “You’ve got a
ring. I’ve got coins…You want to trade?”

Old Guy shook his head. Then he started
playing charades. He pretended to be someone sitting in a
chair.

“That’s a really good invisible chair,” I
said.

Then he acted like he had long hair, which
he flicked behind his ear. He batted his eyelashes a few times,
too.

“A woman?” I said.

He nodded with excitement. For the next
part, he drew his fingers around his neck into a point. At the
point, he made an imaginary circle.

“A necklace?” I said.

He clapped and cheered.

“The necklace…a woman…the woman with the
necklace! The one I met? You know her?”

He pointed to the ring on his finger
again.

“You’re
married
to her?”

He gave a grim nod. Then, without warning,
he grabbed me by the hand and led me straight into a wall. I closed
my eyes right before impact. But the crash I’d expected never came.
When I opened my eyes again, Old Guy was dragging me down a dark
tunnel.

“Thanks for getting me out of there,” I
said. Then I heard something scream. And I thought maybe I
shouldn’t be prematurely thankful.

Old Guy took me down a rocky, uneven
staircase. He didn’t seem to be in the mood for conversation. I, on
the other hand, was having some very serious thoughts. If that
woman
had
been my mother, and Old Guy was married to
her….

“By the way,” I said to Old Guy. “Are you my
dad?”

We stopped in front of a door. He looked at
me and smiled. And then he pushed the door open.

Inside, it looked like a very old person’s
bedroom. Maybe it was even his room. The bed was the main
attraction. It had four posts and curtains covering every side. I
went up to it and drew back one of the curtains. Nobody was under
the white covers. But on second glance, I noticed a pure white
caterpillar lying on
top
of the covers.

“Tika!” I said.

She didn’t respond, though. I yelled her
name a couple more times, but to no effect. It took me a moment to
recognize the deep, calm pattern of her breathing. She was sound
asleep.

“Come on,” I said. “We’ve got to get out of
here. I think…there’s a woman here who might be my mother or a
witch or both, and she trapped me underground again, and somehow I
managed to escape, and I
swear
I’m not going in the ditch a
third time. So wake up.”

Still nothing. Tika really did not pick the
best times for a nap. I reached down and shook her back and forth a
little, just to see if anything would happen. Her breathing didn’t
change one bit. I looked back to Old Guy for help, and he started
with charades again. First, he imitated a woman. Then, he picked up
a stick that was on the ground. He aimed it at Tika. After he waved
it around in the air, he brought it down like a whip. Then he ran
around to the other side and fell on the ground, where he pretended
to sleep.

“The woman put a spell on Tika, causing her
to fall into a deep sleep?” I guessed.

Old Guy hopped to his feet and gave me the
thumbs up. Sometimes, you really get on the same page as your
charades partner. It’s great. But just knowing what was wrong
didn’t mean I could fix it.

If Tika was cursed, no amount of screaming
and shouting would wake her. What could I do? Pour a bucket of
water over her head? No, I already knew the answer. There’s only
one thing that can wake a sleeping girl who’s been put under a
spell: I had to give her a kiss.

The thought wasn’t a pleasant one, but it
was my last hope. I went to the bed and pulled the curtain aside.
Then I took a deep breath, leaned in, closed my eyes, and…

“That is not going to have much of an
effect.” It was a woman’s voice. I stopped about an inch from Tika
and turned to look. It was the woman from my memory.

“But don’t let me interrupt,” she said.
“Please.”

“What do you want with my friends?” I said.
“I know you’re some kind of witch.”

She looked angry at that. “Who told you?”
she said.

“A squirrel,” I said.

She shook her head. “He can’t keep his mouth
shut.”

Then she approached me. At first, I closed
my eyes and shielded myself, waiting for her to curse me. But when
I opened my eyes, she was just standing in front of me, a curious
expression on her face.

“You look so young,” she said. “Almost
too
young.”

“To be your son?” I said.

She laughed at that. “No,” she said. “You
aren’t my son.”

I felt a little bit heartbroken by that. “I
really thought you might be…” I said. “You were my only
memory.”

“What’re you talking about? You mean the
visions?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I thought it was a
memory.”

“Didn’t you notice how it changed each time?
You were seeing the present moment. You were seeing what I wanted
you to see. I gave you challenges to overcome, but I helped you
along the way. I had to see if you were worthy.”

“Of what? To be the savior?”

“No,” she said, laughing. “I brought you
here to be my next husband.”

“
What
?” I said. It was like getting
punched in the face and then kicked in the stomach. She wasn’t my
mother, I wasn’t the savior,
and
now she wanted to marry me.
I couldn’t believe it.

“As you can see, my current husband is
aging,” she pointed to Old Guy. “I do not share that curse.
Therefore, I must replace my husband every so often. I’ve been
waiting for a worthy one for years now. I sent him out to search,
offering him freedom once he found a replacement. But nobody could
pass all the tests.”

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“Each challenge you faced had a specific
purpose. They each represented qualities I look for in a man. The
first one, the caterpillar, was a show of strength. The second
test, the squirrel, was a measure of intelligence. That one almost
tripped you up, even though I gave you nets
and
batteries.
So many possible solutions…it was nearly too easy. But eventually
you did find your way past him.

“And of course, the third test was a measure
of trust. In any relationship, one needs to be able to trust their
partner. You showed yourself worthy when you put your faith in your
caterpillar friend.”

I didn’t feel all that satisfied by her
explanation. “What about the dragon?” I said. “What was
that
for?”