“Debating a matter of faith using science is somewhat
like writing a poem in algebra.”
- from The Journal of D. D. Windward
“I met your great-grandson,” said Peter.
Douglas smiled, in the way he did. It made you feel proud of yourself. “Derek. Yes, I know. I haven’t had the pleasure, myself, regrettably.”
“Oh. Okay. Yeah, he’s uh, you know...a great kid.”
Douglas’ smile dimmed just a bit. “Please, Peter, you shouldn’t say things you don’t mean around me. I’ve always preferred honesty, for honesty is clarity. You understand?”
“Well, yeah… I guess so. Jeez, I’m sorry. I don’t dislike him or anything like that. We just didn’t click.”
“There’s no need to be sorry.”
“I think you’re just being polite when you say everything’s fine, though. I think it’s not fine, you are just saying it is.”
Douglas’ eyebrows shuffled. “Why do you say that?”
“Oh, man. You’re psychoanalyzing me, huh? Maybe it’s the accent. You come off like Hannibal Lector, but in a good way, and that worries me. Everybody says you were really smart.”
“Psychoanalyzing, did you say? It sounds vaguely familiar. Is that, perhaps…?”
“Oh, you probably never read Freud. I dabbled in it. He was living in Vienna while you were out here in the Pennsylvania boonies. Whoops. Uh, no offense.”
Douglas nodded. “No, I was. Well, that aside, we should try hard not to use anachronisms, it will just confuse things. Everything I know about the time you live in is woefully vague.”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sure thing,” said Peter, feeling rather stupid, again. “Psychoanalysis is kind of an anachronism these days, too. Say, where are we, anyway? This looks like Sparkle. Is it? I’ve been wondering about that.”
“Well, not exactly. You can think of it as the ‘other Sparkle', if you wish.”
“It’s more like a Sparkle-Wacko.”
Douglas shrugged. “If you’d like.”
“Where did this place come from? Who made it? Did someone make it? Or is it just here?”
Douglas was already turning away, though. “Who, indeed? Come with me. I’ve got something to show you.”
“Okay.”
“Right this way.”
The two of them walked down Appoline Way. Peter’s eyes bounced from one side of the street to the other, surveying the store fronts, which were all eerily still and lacking signs. Douglas wasn’t speaking, but humming some old tune with one hand on his pipe, and one in his pocket. At first, Peter didn’t want to disturb him, believing that if there were anything to say Douglas would be saying it. His curiosity was piqued, however, when he saw something vaguely familiar. He stopped and pointed.
“Is that the music shop?” he asked. “What’s going on in there? It looks weird.” Peter recognized the vinyl record store, Willow’s Music. Although there was no sign or placard, as there was in the real Sparkle. The store sold all types of used media, its shelves full of old cassettes, DVDs, and video games. Peter hadn’t had a chance to browse its collection. He was glad that the town had a store like it. This place looked vacant. It was a store for ghosts in a ghost town.
Douglas stopped walking and patiently turned to Peter. “Have a look,” he said.
“What’s in there? Is it the same store, or what?” Peter asked. Douglas just nodded at the door, then suggested he open it and go inside. Peter accepted the invitation. He grabbed the handle, then immediately tore his hand back from it, startled. “God, it feels weird! Really, really weird.” It wasn’t that the door was locked, or even stuck, he had been expecting that. It simply had no give, not a jostle or a wobble. It was as if carved out of marble. Far beyond that, even. It was a sensation of firmness that Peter could not explain. He suspected that, were a sledgehammer swung hard enough at the door, the hammer’s head would shatter like a crystal goblet. It was like nothing he’d felt before. Like every square inch was as heavy as Mount Everest. “Is this a real door? I mean, can it open?”
“Is it real? I’d say you’re asking the wrong question, Peter.”
“I just got this strange feeling...like…like it was infinitely dense, or something. Not that I know what that feels like. I’ve just never felt anything so solid. It’s just…it’s…”
Douglas became, suddenly, curious. “Infinitely dense, did you say? Is that possible, these days? I’ve not kept up, I’m afraid.”
The door was so captivating, Peter had to force himself to turn away. “Well, they say it’s possible at the center of a Black Hole. It’s just a theory. They didn’t have black holes in your time, I know.”
“A black hole? That sounds fascinating. Is that Cosmology?”
“Yeah. Well, astrophysics. You missed a lot. The whole Theory of Gravity was turned on its head.”
“Hmm. I always thought Newton was a bit of a ponce, anyway. What is a black hole?”
“It’s sort of a place where physics breaks down. A black hole the size of a marble could have greater mass than the Earth. They can be supermassive, too, though. When a star that's big enough runs out of steam the core collapses into infinity. Infinite density, I mean, and nothing can escape it. Not even light. There’s one at the center of our galaxy. I think that's right."
"You sound like you know quite a bit."
"That's literally everything I know. I wrote a report in high school."
Douglas seemed taken in by what Peter had said. “Astonishing. Simply, astonishing. So they can affect the impetus of light particles, these black holes? Hold on, that’s not new, entirely. We did have some thinking along those lines in my day. I’d forgotten. It was believed that there were systems in which a star’s existence would not be apparent to the eye, for light could not escape it. Its existence could be supposed by its effects on the nearby visible star. The theory had a few supporters. It was old, even in my day.”
Peter was impressed. “Wow, I didn’t know people knew that much, back then. It’s not, really, my field, anyway. I prefer a microscope to a telescope.”
Douglas nodded. “Oh, we knew quite a bit. As for your question about the door, you can’t trust your perceptions in this place, Peter. You’re merely a hypothesis here.”
“Is this that thing about me not being real?”
“Precisely.”
“Yeah, I don’t get that. What do you mean? I’m not real? I am the one who’s real, the place isn’t. It’s a dream, isn’t it? You are, too. It's just I'm insane.”
Douglas was shaking his head. “Oh, but you’ve got it backward, my friend. I was hoping you’d left all of that skepticism behind you. Perhaps I have not qualified what I’ve been telling you. I went into this a little the first time we met. This is…Sparkle-Wacko, Peter, it is real. It is you who are not. Sparkle-Wacko. Hmm. That name is a mouthful, isn’t it?”
"I’ll come up with something better. Okay, but it makes a lot more sense that I'm crazy. I know that stuff has happened out in the real world, that weird stuff. I was coming around to believing, too. I was almost there. There was all this stuff with the wallpaper. Jeez, I really don't know anymore. I've never felt so confused."
Douglas smiled. "I sympathize, Peter. I was inculcated into the bizarre at a very young age. I can only imagine how flustered you are."
“How do I get unflustered?
"Are we speaking, now, of you becoming whole here?"
"Yeah. How do I do that?"
“I cannot say, specifically. It may take an extreme effort, on your part.”
“What kind of effort?”
“An exertion. However, by exertion, that does not mean, necessarily, a feat of strength.“
“Well, that’s good to hear. So what’s in the store, anyway?”
Douglas waved a hand, dismissing the question. “It isn’t important. I don’t want you distracted. It’s got nothing at all to do with why you are here.”
Peter was a little unsettled. Partly bewildered, partly nervous. He felt like this the one occasion he went ocean diving. He didn’t intend to ever do that again. “Okay. What do I do? Oh, wait, you don’t know, huh?”
Douglas smiled and put a hand on his shoulder, guiding him away from the music shop. They continued down the cobblestone street. “There’s much more I mean to show you. Come along.”
Douglas led Peter out of town. It was hard to recognize where they were going because it didn’t look like Pennsylvania. Besides the basic color palette of this world, this Sparkle was ninety-nine percent empty of trees. It was wide-open, contoured as if a giant razor had come along and shaved its whiskers, revealing a world of endlessly tumbling hills and roads leading off into mysterious places. Peter turned around and around, all the more impressed as they strolled. Douglas, graciously, kept silent and puffed his pipe.
Peter had seen amazing things in dreams, things far stranger than this place. However, none had ever felt so authentic. In dreams, his body was a formless specter that needn’t necessarily keep its shape, or do what a body does, and apt to change and rearrange itself. Dreamscapes had always been loosely sketched representations, with the delineating lines slowly pulling apart. All the while, just over the horizon, consciousness loomed, poised and ready to pounce. Dreams were shallow and unfounded. Often, when he started to awake from them, it was to the sobering realization that the real world had been just an inch away, with barely more than a bed sheet between them, waiting for him to return to his senses. It was falling out of madness and coming into being. But this dream felt deeper, sounder. What did that mean, exactly? Invisible boys were hard enough to believe in, but this place…
Just over a hill, and around another, Peter’s new house came into view above them in the distance. It looked dazzling. The bright, simple colors seemed to have a kind of bio-luminescent sheen, set against the background of a blue sky that gleamed with brilliance. The house rested closest to the Southern side of the flat hill. The house looked as if it had been knocked off-center with a swift kick. Douglas said nothing, and Peter wondered if this is what he was brought to see.
There was a small forest to the left side of the house. It was a rectangular swatch of trees that appeared to once have been creeping like a caterpillar down the hillside, and being sneaky about it, but froze in its place when it was caught in the act. It was thin, like a landing strip, and it stretched off into the distance, the far end disappearing over the other side of a hill. It just seemed strange, because it was the only sizable cluster of trees anywhere in this world, excepting a few odd copses sprouting up like oases in the desert. Its placement here seemed almost deliberate.
“That woods there. Those aren’t the woods around my house, are they?” Peter said.
“Trees are trees, Peter. Isn't that so?"
"I don't know. I just have a feeling that those aren't the same trees. I really don't know, though."
"You are correct. That isn't the same woods,” replied Douglas. “I understand it might be hard to put into words, but why did you say that? Tell me as best as you can.”
“Because…hmm,” Peter’s brow furrowed. “I’m…”
“Go on, then. Say what you are thinking.”
“It’s just, well, I got the feeling that these woods were put here wrong. If that’s possible. There were never trees around here, were there? I mean, nobody took them away, they just never were.”
“That's exactly right. How can you know that, though?”
“I don’t.”
“You did just say it, Peter.”
“It’s just that…no one bothered to make trees, except right there, but those are wrong. Why am I thinking this? It’s like I know it, but I can’t know it.”
“You are having thoughts like this, often, aren't you? Things that you feel certain about, yet, you cannot be. Though I doubt that covers all of the new talents you’ve experienced.”
Peter turned to Douglas. “Yeah. Something a lot like that. That’s mostly it. I guess there’s other stuff.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s just the start.”
“The start of what?”
“The new you!" Douglas said brightly. "Well, that’s not quite correct. The whole you is a better way to put it.”
“The whole me? Yeah. I think I get what you’re saying. My brain feels far more active. What’s going on?”
“It is far more active, in actuality. To make an analogy, you are like a churning factory that has added a new line of production. There is far more going out, and concomitantly, far more coming in to process.”
“What is that new product? Or am I stretching the analogy?”
“No, no. What you are producing is a new means of comprehension. Affinity.”
“Affinity?”
“Yes. That is what I call it. Affinity. You see, although you are barely acclimated to your new cerebrum, you are already starting to see an appreciable difference from the way you were. It’s barely begun, it is in a nascent stage. Raw is even a good word for it. Someday, you may be a whole different person.”
Peter frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that. My wife married me, you know. What if the brilliant new me is like…Hannibal the Cannibal? Jeez, I keep bringing that guy up. That hardly seems fair to us, you know.”
Douglas waved his hands and shook his head. “No, Peter. You won’t be someone else, entirely. I should be more clear. You will simply be expanding your geography, not changing it. Mere extrapolation, from here to there, no different than biological maturity. You will be different, someday, yes, but you will be different in the way you were different as a man of twenty than you were a boy of eight. You will grow beyond the limitations of your old mind, past those points at which you may have once found an ending.”
Peter took a deep breath. “You make it sound like there are no drawbacks.”
Douglas shook his head apologetically. “Aren’t there always?”
“What are they?”
Douglas closed in a little. “How will you feel when you are seeing things no one else is seeing?”
“I already know what that’s like.”
“And how did it leave you feeling?”
“It sucks. It really sucks. People look at you like you’re nuts. And there's just no way to bring them into your nuts, you know what I mean? Ha! You would have found that funny if you were from my time.”
Douglas nodded. “You find you have to explain yourself, but cannot. The explanation, though true, is impossible to verify. Soon enough, the truth is partitioned into more segments than you can possibly manage. You become confused which part of the truth is lie, and which part of the lie is truth.”
“Yeah. Is that the worst part? I really want that to be the worst part.”
“For you, possibly.”
“For me? Are there people who have it worse? People who have this?”
“There are extreme examples. Beings who went through a change like the one you felt, but with a far greater potential. These beings have changed so much that they retain their old forms, merely, as a guise. They are far more than they appear to be.”
“Wow. So they’re, like, superheroes?”
Douglas shrugged. This was, most likely, a concept he did not know. “That depends on how you define ‘super’. Would you consider an increase in demonstrable power enough to make your new form superior to the old? Is that superiority to a thinking being? Is it to you?”
“Wait. Huh? I don’t know. That won’t happen to me, will it? I don’t think I want the responsibility. You know, with great power comes great...well, the ramifications…I could be dangerous to other people.”
Douglas shook his head. “Yours is a small, specific change, one that will grow in proportion with your ability to grow. The manner of change of these other beings was catastrophic.”
“How did it happen to them?”
Douglas stepped up to Peter and directed his attention back to the house. “I know very little about that, unfortunately. Tell me more, Peter, about the woods. What do you see? The first thing that comes to mind, even if you can’t explain it.”
Peter looked. Something did come to mind. “Is that Bunyine Woods? It’s just a weird feeling.”
“Yes, Bunyine Woods. Not where it should be, is it?”
“Well, yeah. Why did you put it right next to my new…yours…the house?”
Douglas shook his head. “I didn’t put it there, Peter. I was just as surprised as you are when I first saw it.”
Peter looked at Douglas. “Oh, I guess I thought you made this place. Until today, anyway.”
Douglas laid a hand on his own breast, as if abashed at the very idea. “No! Not I, Peter. I am just a visitor here, with just a bit more influence than you have. Parlor tricks, mostly, as you’ve seen. However, after all this time, something has arrived here - well, it’s more accurate to say it returned - that’s so powerful, so old, that it seems to be able to do things here I thought were impossible. It created for itself a duplicate of its home and placed it there, near Moon Window. It’s keeping watch.”
This completely threw Peter. His face crumpled up in confusion. “What sort of ‘something’?”
Douglas’ face became very severe. It was close to the weathered, world-weary sort of gaze one saw hanging on the faces of old soldiers. Despite his youthful countenance, Peter was glimpsing D. D. Windward’s real age. “It is an adversary, Peter,” said the young man. “It resides in those woods. It is the Bunyine.”
“The Bunyine?” replied Peter, scowling and crossing his arms. “Oh, man. I thought that had to be something nasty. The second I heard that word, I thought that. Well, actually, the first thing I thought was that it was a tuber.”
Douglas waved a hand, not wanting to encourage this line of thought. “’Nasty’ is not the word I’d use, Peter. ‘Terrible’ is a much better one. More terrible a thing than you’ve ever encountered. It’s something you are, certainly, not ready to confront. There may never come a time when you are.”
“Okay, you’re starting to spook me out. I don’t get scared in dreams, usually.”
“I’m not going to lie to you. There is something very frightening out there in those trees. It has no compunction to kill the innocent.”
“Jeez. Thank god, this place isn’t real. Or I’m unreal. Or whatever. I don’t really understand it, yet.”
Douglas shook his head. “It is out there in your world, too, Peter. Out there, it is as real as you are, and it is waiting for its moment.”
“To do what?”
“Who can say? Nothing can be certain with a creature so old. Its actions can’t be predicted. Not reliably. The Bunyine may be far more intelligent than I am. The fact that it has survived for millenniums without being discovered by the world must be considered evidence of that.”
This upset Peter. He didn’t want to meet anything far smarter than Douglas D. Windward. He wanted for the young man to be the hero in all of this, not himself. He preferred it that way. “What is it?”
Douglas took a step back, becoming pensive. “I have faced danger, Peter. I have seen what men can do, and what it takes. I cannot in good conscience pull you into this rigmarole without making sure you understand what is at stake.”
“Oh, man. I’m not gonna like this, am I?”
“In the life of most men, Peter, it is often asked of them to face what it is they fear. However, far harder a thing to ask of a man is to face what it is he believes. When a man confronts himself, confronts his principles, he learns things that he would rather not, for truth is a realm of disillusionment. Do you understand?”
“Not entirely. I think so. But, no. Not at all.”
“Peter, you are struggling with belief. Aren’t you? You’ve said as much.”
Peter nodded, slowly. “I mean, I don’t know. I don’t talk about belief very often. Which kind of belief, though? Are we talking about religion? Do I have beliefs? Like a faith? Or are you asking if I believe in the supernatural?"
"Start with the first kind. I would, very much, like to know. Do you have a faith? Keep in mind, it has no bearing on my opinion of you."
"I guess I don't. In college, I suppose, I still had a little bit left. I became very political, too. It seemed so important, at that age, to believe in something. But I don’t, anymore. Not really. I’ve always just trusted the facts."
“Peter, one should ponder the big questions. Sometimes, to not know what you believe is to not know what you are really thinking. When that is the case, learning may sometimes only increase ambiguity. Your head becomes filled with artless facts that never take shape in a way that reflects the realities of this world. Don’t misunderstand, one should never stop learning, but one should do more than just absorb information.”
“Yeah, I get that. Even if I should ponder the big questions, I don’t. Like I said, that’s just not me. Can't help it.”
"I understand that. Faith is a unifying concept. For better or worse, it brings things together, just like it brings people together. However, most people’s beliefs are so infused with their desires that, in the end, they are not so much models of belief as they are models of need."
"I never thought of it like that."
"So many of us, simply, cannot deal with the rigors of this unfair, unjust existence. They need to know it is not for nothing, Peter. And some people make enemies of all who disagree.”
Peter shook his head. “I’m not like that, though. I wouldn’t treat people like that for anything I believe in.”
Douglas pointed at Peter. “Yet, you claim to not believe in anything.”
Peter acknowledged this. “Okay, okay. But still, even if I did have religion, or whatever, I wouldn’t attack people for their beliefs. I know that about myself.”
“Don't be so certain, Peter. Don't assume you know what you are capable of doing."
"I know it, though. I don't believe like that."
"Is your wife a belief?”
“What? What kind of question is that? No. She’s a person.”
“So one does not believe in another person?”
“I know it’s not the same thing.”
“If one believes something with the utmost confidence, would that not make it as real to them as your wife is to you?”
“No, because she’s real.”
“You’d do anything for her, right. Would you die for your wife?”
“Well, yeah, if that’s what it takes to protect her. But a lot of the things people believe in aren’t usually as real as a person. They’ve never seen them. I’ve seen my wife. Touched her. I know she’s real.”
“It’s not knowing what is real, Peter, it’s thinking that you know.”
“Jeeze. I think you're a post-modernist. I don’t believe in anything as much as I believe in her, though. I don’t need to believe in her. She’s real. There’s nothing to take on faith. She’s absolutely real.”
“If she were to, suddenly, not exist, would you not retain your love for her?”
Peter frowned. He didn’t like noodling around with Alyssa’s existence. “Yeah, I’d still love her. Of course, I would.”
“Yet, she would no longer be real.”
Peter shook his head. “Oh, man, I don’t know what to say to that. I just don’t. I don’t remember my retorts. I used to be able to just shout out ‘that’s a False Dichotomy!’. All those dormitory debates over pizza and pot. But it’s been a long time. And I don’t have access to Wikipedia, at the moment.”
“I’m not trying to confuse you, Peter. That is the last thing we need. I am only trying to say that you should not be afraid to believe in something.”
“I do have opinions, but they’re just what makes sense to me. I don’t have any particular attachment to them. Like black holes. I believe in them. I wouldn’t pray to them, or kill for them, but I believe in them. I don’t get emotional about whether they exist or not. Nothing about my life really hinges on them being a reality. Most of what I believe is like that. When it comes to the origins of the universe, or the meaning of life, I don’t dwell on that stuff like a lot of people do.”
“I see.”
“I mean, I've seen what that sort of thing does to people. I grew up around that. I just want to live my life and be decent, because I wouldn’t like myself if I wasn’t. I don’t care that much about what it all means. I don’t see what it has to do with everyday life. You’ve got to live, no matter what happened four billion years ago; and other people have to live, no matter what they believe.”
“Then that’s the difference between you and many. You don’t need to believe. It is far rarer a thing than you know. It is a strength, and a serious weakness.”
“Why a weakness?”
"There are things worth believing in, Peter. There are truths out there worthy of your fealty. Standing for something makes one stronger.”
“Danger? Is this thing in the forest really dangerous?”
“Indeed, it is.”
“Does it have something to do with what happened to Derek the other day?”
“It does.”
“Okay, so what is it?”
Douglas pointed to the strip of trees. “It is deadly. So very deadly. Most of what I know of it, though not all, are stories. But they have a seed of truth. I do not think there is an atrocity conceived of that it would not commit, if it were necessary.”
Peter crossed his arms and shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I believe that even you are real. I mean, it’s too unbelievable, all of this. Why should the Bunyine be real if you aren’t?”
“You’ve already seen things, Peter, things that must have you questioning everything. Maybe the question you need to ask is whether or not you already believe.”
Peter had nothing to say. He looked down at the old shoes Douglas provided him. It would have been clear, even if he'd not said so, that he was confused. Douglas was sympathetic. “All I really can say at this point, Peter, is that the Bunyine probably knows something about you. The situation concerns me, because it's not just your safety that's in jeopardy, there is something in that house, underneath it, precisely, that is invaluable. Something that diminishes, in importance, all the world's wealth, all the fortunes ever amassed by kings and crooks.”
“Wow. That was pretty good. The 'kings and crooks' thing, I mean. I couldn't pull off saying something like that.”
“The word ‘importance’ is not reliable here, Peter.”
“What is it? What’s the thing in the house?”
“It’s a gate, of that I’m certain. A passage leading from this place to another world, perhaps even another reality. The Bunyine, I believe, aims to pass through, and he’ll do whatever is needed to make that happen. But the gate is not your goal, Peter, it’s beyond the scope of this mission.”
Peter’s eyes lit up. “Holy crap. A mission. I never thought I’d ever go on a mission. That’s for a different kind of guy than me.”
“You will do fine, Peter.”
“But I’m not real, right? How can I get in the house if I can't get in the music store?”
“I cannot get in, either.”
“Why can’t you get in?”
“It would take a great surge, more power than I can muster, to break the seal. Power that you will release in the act of realization. For a moment, you will be the locus of an unwieldy force. It will knock you off your feet, most likely, but it will not harm you.”
“Oh, okay.”
“You will have but the one chance, I fear. One.”
“But what do I have to do to change?”
“Derek found a way to do it, though he did not use it to gain entrance to the house. He didn't know he needed to. He is different, though, he was born with what you have just received. It was not such a shock as it will be for you. Yours will be different. How? I cannot reliably say.”
“But what did he do?”
“I did not witness it.”
“Great.”
“You mentioned a force field.”
“I did. You probably don’t get that.”
“I’m certain I know what you mean.”
“Good. Okay.
Douglas made a sweeping gesture. “All of this comes from a kind of intelligence, the way a picture comes from a painter’s palette. There is a mind infused in every particle, an entity that has far more power here than the Bunyine has.”
Peter’s eyes widened. “An intelligence? You mean God?”
Douglas shook his head. “No, no. Not that powerful. It’s the creator of Sparkle-Wacko, actually. Your new affinity makes it possible for you to be here and experience this realm, because it is the product of thought made real. Its thoughts. It granted you entry. And when you become real here, what that really means is that you will come to understand this place. You will discover something in yourself, it could be anything, that will make this place as solid as the good Earth. It could be anything."
“Oh. So, did this same thing do this stuff to my brain?”
“Precisely.”
“Why?”
“It likes human beings. It might think you will be useful. It will, most likely, do the same for your wife."
“So I got lucky? I got picked first?”
“I wouldn’t let it go to your head, Peter,” said Douglas with a smirk.
"She would've been the smarter choice. That's not a witty remark, it's the truth."
"I think you will do just fine, Peter."
“Is it a good guy, like us? Wait, are we the good guys? We’re the good guys, right?”
“I've seen nothing in it that I would call malicious. Nor in you, since you asked.”
“Is it a spirit, or something?”
“I don’t know if it’s a living thing, or if it ever was. I suspect it is, but not living in the way we think, as in breathing, aging and dying. But it has thoughts of its own. It’s very bright. This being calls itself the Onk. It made this place. It's a fussy thing, honestly, but it is good, I believe.”
"The Onk? Why is it called that?"
"Oh, don't ask me, for I don’t know. It's not important. What is important is what it's done. You see, it put a series of wards on that house to keep out intruders. Though the upper seals have weaknesses - it doesn't value their protection, as much - the bottom level is impenetrable, for that is where the gate is located. The creature, if that word is apt, is obligated to protect it, and it takes that responsibility very seriously. You need to get inside the house, despite its protections."
“Why do I need to get in there, exactly?”
Douglas suddenly leaned in close, lifting a finger to his lips to hush Peter up. “We must step lightly here, Peter. With cat-like tread. Understand?” he whispered.
Peter nodded. “It can hear us?”
“I'm not certain if it is listening in on this conversation. It is at rest. Even if it were not, it does not need to listen to keep me from breaking its rules. It has a strong, unpredictable sense of propriety, which it mimics in an attempt to be human. It even has a sense of humor, or it fancies it does, but it understands whimsy no better than it does good and evil. Thankfully, at the moment, it is somewhat distracted.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Douglas stepped back, bringing things back to normal.
"Where does it come from?" Peter asked.
"Damned if I know. I do, however, know that it interferes when it decides it needs to. It can use this place, and the energies here, to affect your world. But it comes at a cost. That’s why this place remains incomplete. There are not trees, nor are there interiors to any of the stores and homes.”
“It can do things, though? More than just the stuff it did to my brain?”
“Oh, much more. When I say it interferes, that is a severe understatement. I believe it has brought some things from the past to the present. Beings like the kind we earlier discussed. It did it, possibly, thinking they could help protect this place from the Bunyine. This is the reason it is not listening. It is resting from its exertions.
“It’s irresponsible, you mean?”
“Naive is a better word. And rash. It knows what is right, and what is wrong, but it cannot discern who is good, who is evil, or who is in between. That takes a human canniness, I suppose. Like a child, it trusts that all things are good, and doesn't recognize evil when it is staring it in the face. It makes terrible mistakes and then it tries to correct them by creating more rules, more strictures, more problems. It can get confused, often arbitrary and logically inconsistent. It’s learning, though. It watches people, mimics us, but it does so without truly comprehending us. It even displays a certain duality of purpose that is, perhaps, its most human trait. I have observed its behaviors for a long time.”
"Hmm, a confused superbeing?”
"Perhaps. The Onk has a child’s sense of morality, and is not capable of compromise in some things. It cannot fathom ending the life of an intelligent creature, such as the Bunyine, even though that creature is a killer and is determined to kill, again."
“Hm. But why will it let me break into this house? I mean, it went to the trouble of warding it, and all.”
"This is where it gets strange. I have mention that it "
"That all remains to be seen. Timing is crucial. There may never come another day in your lifetime when both the Onk and the Bunyine are both distracted. If it has the strength, it may even interfere with your gaining entrance to the house. I cannot say what it can do, or will be capable of doing.”
“When I become real, though, it won’t be safe for me anymore? That jabberwocky will be able to hurt me?”
“Correct. I am afraid there are details here, in regards to the Bunyine, that I simply cannot reveal. The Onk makes the rules and this is one it will not bend. Specifically, if there was a way for you to to kill the Bunyine, even if such a thing were possible, which it is not, I could no more directly tell you than you could flap your arms and fly to the moon. In fact, while you're here, you will find that you cannot mention the act of death. You can use the word 'death' or 'dying', but you can't refer to the specific act. The Onk does not allow it. It is frightened by it."
“Does Derek know any of this?”
“I’m afraid not. I have never met the boy.”
“Why not? Doesn’t he come here?”
“Yes, but I am afraid the Onk is keeping us apart.”
“It’s keeping you from seeing him?”
Douglas nodded, his face resisting the urge show frustration. “It fears what sort of influence I may have on him, I believe. He’s very important, you see.”
Peter was getting tired. The constant revelations in this conversation were starting to wear him down. “Why is this happening now? Why can’t it wait until I beat Splinter Cell: Blacklist? I've been putting it off for years.”
“I’m coming to that. You see, something just happened out there in your world, something that makes me think that the house will be left unguarded on the night of the next full moon. The gendarme will be asleep, if you will.”
“It has to be me? I just got here, what do I have to do with anything? Did you know I was coming? Is it some sort of prophecy?“
“No, Peter. I did not know you were coming. It must be you because you are here. Rest assured that this is a worthwhile effort, though. It may be the only way. In this instance, there is a bigger picture to be considered.“
“Hmm...okay.” Peter dipped his head and scratched his chin. Pensive. “I’ll do it, I guess. Heck, it doesn’t sound that hard, breaking into some old house. I am an engineer, but I don’t have a lot of construction skills, unfortunately. I took wood shop, once, and I made a bung mallet.”
Douglas smiled, very pleased. He slapped Peter on the shoulder. “You’re going to be quite a help, Peter. I just knew when you arrived that you were going to be a part of all of this. I just knew it!”
Peter blushed a little, and for an instant, wondered how the approval of a man younger than himself could make him feel twelve feet tall. He couldn’t keep from grinning as they shook hands. “Hey, it’s no problem,” Peter proclaimed. “I’m just that great a guy.”
She and Peter hadn’t discussed those strange incidents that led up to her searching out THE PIPER AND THE WATCHING WOODS. She didn’t understand most of what went on this afternoon, but she felt certain that if she could step out of herself she would be able to make sense of it. Not a lot of people know what it’s like to be drawn into a delusion like that. It makes you question reality like nothing else could. She'd looked up everything she could about the book on-line. It calmed her down a little, made it feel like she was making progress, though she hadn’t, really, accomplished anything.
Peter had insisted that he’d never heard of the book, but she knew he had to have. He'd just forgotten. The book was far too famous. Its Wikipedia page said that it had sold just over nineteen million copies since being released in 1958. It was on a lot of those Top 100 Books for Children lists. She knew about it, and she never saw a book in English until she was seven. There was even an obscure made-for-television version from the mid-1970’s just called THE PIPER. She watched a little of it on Youtube. That thing’s a riot. All of those trippy nature sequences with the flowers and streams. That soundtrack chock full of that acoustic John Denver stuff that was big back then. Peter would love it. He’d laugh out loud.
The writer/illustrator’s name was Walter Dennis Kiplinger. The page on him wasn’t very long. He was born in Philadelphia in 1923. He had contracted Polio when he was six, so he’d been confined to a wheelchair for most of his life. Against all odds, though, he’d been an animator for Disney for much of the 1950’s before releasing his hugely successful book. There had been no follow-ups. He was still living there at nearly a hundred years old. He’d been very reclusive his entire existence, and there were no surviving interviews. The only photographs of him were in black-and-white, and it didn’t say anything flattering about the man. Even though he was young in the picture, he still looked like a surly, old curmudgeon. He had this no-nonsense pout and a thinning hairline that was slicked straight back with what looked like motor oil. Plus, he had a pair of incredibly thick, circular glasses that, coupled with an empty stare, all made him seem to be one of those people who’d been incredibly old from the day he was born.
Another picture from the same time shows him nested comfortably in his antique wheelchair. It was that quaint variety, with the big wheels up front and the small wheels in back, like those crazy old bicycles of yesteryear. It looked incredibly, unbearably heavy. That must be like pushing someone around in a church pew. His hands were resting on his lap while his legs were covered in a delicate blanket that looked like a large doily. Was he the Crypt Keeper? What if you just reached out and smacked him on the shoulder? Would a whirlwind of dust have spewed up from him? Would it have gone all over your face, like you’d been hit with one of those giant vaudeville powder puffs? To this day I bet he's still being rolled around in some old Society Hill condo in that thing. I can just picture some poor nurse stuck pushing him, and that 1000 lb. wheelchair, up some ramp, the old man hollering old-timey, racist epithets every inch of the way upstairs.
Alyssa sat back from the computer with a yawn. What did she do with any of this information? It didn’t seem to have any bearing on their situation. Should she bring Peter in on this? What would he say? What would he do? She was used to sharing everything with him, not hiding things. She always asked his opinion on everything important, and he always asked hers. They had been a perfect team since the day they met. So it felt wrong, holding things back from him. It was really different, and not in a good way.
Though it was hard to face, everything changed when she’d heard her husband speak the name ‘Dickon’. It was more than just his sickness, it was their sickness, just like the child she wanted to have with him someday would be theirs. Something this important can’t belong to just one of them.
She searched “symptoms of Schizophrenia”. Pressing ENTER had never felt so ominous. It was the hardest thing she’d done in a long time.
Over the last couple of days Alyssa had spent a lot of time on her laptop. According to what she’d read, a lot of the indicators weren’t there: lack of feeling, emotional detachment, loss of mental acuity. That made her shake her head. That’s definitely not Peter. Not him now. Not him ever. That was little comfort, though. Abnormal motor function? This provoked some thought. What was that thing about jumping off the balcony? That doesn’t sound like abnormal motor function, I suppose. He’d been in control of his motor functions, probably, he’d just been out of his gourd. Disorganized thought patterns? Everything Peter had been saying seemed to be part of a semi-consistent narrative to her, she just hadn’t put it all together, yet.
Hallucinations and delusions? This started Alyssa worrying. She didn’t know what to make of it. Some of it was, kind of, ambiguous. However, seeing magical English kids that weren’t there was not ambiguous, it was a definite symptom of something pathological, it was something she couldn’t rationalize away. There had to be an explanation that fit, one that didn’t mean the end of the world, the end of their life. The very idea was making her frantic. She couldn’t be looking at a future without him. It felt like a waking nightmare. It was unacceptable. She couldn't watch her entire existence fall apart overnight. She wouldn’t allow it. Why can’t Peter just stop? How can he not know that there was no such thing as Dickon? How come crazy people - not Peter, crazy people - don’t know that they’re crazy? Peter couldn’t be crazy. Not him. So what was the answer? What was eluding her? There was a missing piece to this puzzle, and she knew she would be searching for it deep into the a.m. every night, after Peter had shuffled off to dreamland. Even if the sickness was theirs, right now, she felt like its lone victim.