Of course, Barret was the last in the bath.
He’d got so muddy that Cetra took it upon herself to seek out Beth and ask to borrow one of Mr Brand’s night dresses; Beth was only too happy to oblige. “Sure thing me wee lass,” she’d said, “Can’t get the old bugger to wear the things these days anyway, likes to sleep in the nude, ye see.” Then she’d blushed. “No complaining though,” she’d whispered with a nudge of the elbow and a wink of the eye. By her own generosity, and her having taken so well to Cetra, Beth even offered to give Barret’s sodden clothes a good tub.
“As good a woman as Brand is a man,” Rod said from atop the table he had been placed on by the window of their room.
The limited light shed by a single lantern worked well to mask the true shade of the water in the bath after Barret removed himself dripping over the floor. He wrapped himself in a spare blanket and moved to stand directly in front of the open fire.
“Ah, nothing like warm buns,” he said with a grin.
“All we need now is the butter and jam,” Billy quipped.
Next to go in were the boots, and Billy cleaned them all with a cloth supplied specifically for that purpose. When he was done he lined them all up like little soldiers on the hearth next to Barret who refused to get out of the way.
By the time Cetra re-entered with Barret’s damp clothes draped over her arm, everybody had settled. She dragged a couple of chairs nearer to the fire and hung the clothes over the top of them to air; then she jumped into her bed.
It hadn’t rained again since sometime before the fight had begun earlier, but a good, dry wind had picked up and it whispered a promise of hardening their trail up a bit for the next day’s journey.
Briar’s head hit the pillow and he snored loudly in jest. As far as washing went he had cleaned the mud from his hands and splashed a little water up at his nose then wiped it dry with the bottom corner of his blanket. So, apart from his boots toasting in front of the fire, he was clothed fully and lying on the bed.
“I’m topey stuffed,” he gargled on the pool of saliva in the back of his throat.
Having simply procured a noise that sounded more like grrrrimtrrrrrrroprystrrrruft, Briar propped himself up a little higher on the pillow, swallowed back the offending spit, and said again, “I’m topey stuffed.”
As opposed to Briar, Billy welcomed his bath, and as for covering up, his bare essentials were sufficient for sleeping in. In fact, so soft was his mattress that he felt like he was lying within the billowy folds of a cloud.... or gooserat down for that matter.
So what was a gooserat? Well.... Kind of a rats body with a long neck and a bill like a goose making it look sort of miniature prehistoric. It grew down instead of fur or feathers, which made it a highly sought after commodity; although its supply was in abundance anyway because the veracious creatures bred like rabbits.
“What does topey mean?” Billy asked softly, leaning the question toward Barret.
Barret cupped his mouth with a hand and leaned his answer back at Billy, “It’s how they curse,” he said.
Oh, Billy mouthed, “It sounds stupid. He says it like he doesn’t know how to use it.”
“I know.”
“So what’s this bed made of? It’s really soft.”
“How soft?”
“Really soft, feel it,” Billy sat upright and gestured with a nod.
Barret shifted across the floor and sunk his hand deep into the mattress.
“Gooserat down, softest material on the plain.”
“Gooserat?” Billy gagged, “That sounds off.”
Barret just laughed, “Like a lot of topey things around here,” he said and then went back to his fire.
“I say, good fellows,” Rod spoke now from his cushy spot on the pillow beside Cetra’s head, “What happens next?”
It was a valid question.
It was also followed by a rather prolonged silence.
“Well....” someone eventually began but was quickly drowned out by Briar’s sudden bout of legitimate snoring.
“Listen to it,” Barret said pointing, “Sounds like a Hump boring through a mountain side.”
“Like a train running over a bull,” Billy said.
“Like an elephant burping after eating a big bale of hay,” Barret volleyed back.
“Like a pig....” and then it trailed off.
They both laughed.
On the opposite side Rod and Cetra looked at one another quizzically before Rod posed the question once again.
“So what happens next?”
“Well....” that someone began a second time round.
“I’d still like to go home,” Billy said, “Wouldn’t you, Barret?”
Now there was something Barret hadn’t actually considered. Why was that?
“Ok then, if we want to know how to get you home.... maybe we first need to look at how you got here.”
“The pillars,” Billy said.
Barret tapped his chin and began to pace the floor.
“The pillars....” he repeated, “Yes, that’s how we both got here. And Cetra’s been there too.”
Cetra’s eyes suddenly widened more than they already were. She knew about the pillars, she’d been there lots of times, that’s where she went to pray, when she could find it that is.
“How many times have you been there?” Barret asked.
“I have been there a lot of times.”
“And what happens when you’re there?”
Cetra thought for a moment.
“I pray.” She looked at the ceiling and pursed her lips. “I go to the beach and sometimes I go to the fun park. But they are not real. Billy saw grass and trees and it was really funny when he was scratching around in the grass because I saw him rolling around in the sand.”
Barret screwed up his face. He turned to Billy questioningly.
Billy just smiled, shrugged and laughed a little.
“And then,” Cetra continued, “I think of where I would like to be and what I would like to be doing and I open the door and there I am!”
“Hang on,” Barret interrupted, “it takes you wherever you want to go?’
“Well...” she nodded, “if I am hungry it will take me somewhere I can eat. That is why Billy and I came out at the marketplace, because we were hungry.”
Billy sat up in bed suddenly rigid. “So,” he said, “if I had been thinking about home instead of my stomach it might have taken me there?”
“Maybe?” Cetra answered, unsure.
It was certainly a revelation worth exploring.
“But if it was going to put you somewhere because you wanted food,” Barret said, “why not just drop you off at the local milk bar? Why put you here where you don’t even know where here is? These aren’t even people and none of them know anything about our home, what’s it called again...? Oh yeah.... EARTH!”
“It really is my only option though, isn’t it?” Billy pointed out.
“So far. We just have to keep moving and see if Cetra can find it”
Both Billy and Cetra nodded in agreement.
“I’m happy to keep going on as a company for as long as possible,” Rod said proudly.
Barret looked at his clothes and wondered if they were dry yet.
“Is there anything else you can tell us about the pillars that might come in handy,” he ventured.
Cetra placed her long index finger to the corner of her mouth.
“I see Barry there sometimes,” she said, immediately capturing Barret’s attention. “The first time he told me to stay away, but I did like it there so much that I did not listen to him. He is used to me now. He said that he is always close by and that I should wait for him whenever I am there, because I keep moving it on him, but sometimes he will take too long to show up, so I just go. It is funny because whenever he sees me afterwards he tells me that he got in trouble from his father for losing it again.”
“Losing what?” Billy said.
“The pillars, silly.”
/>
“Sooo....” Barret started slowly, anticipating something relevant in return to the question he was about to ask, “What does this Barry look like?”
“He looks like you and Billy,” she answered without any hesitation, “only different. You know what I mean?’
So far so relevant....
“And do you know his father’s name?’
“No.”
“Is Barry the same height as me, short brown hair maybe?”
“Yes.”
“Skinny?”
“Yes.”
“Always carries a black leather satchel?”
“I suppose it could be leather.”
Barret clapped his hands behind the cover of the blanket he was wrapped in and let out an excited though restrained “woohoo”.
“Barry is my supplier,” he announced with enthusiasm. “Not that I’m supposed to be telling you about it, they like to keep quiet about themselves.... but this is just too good....”
There was a sudden new-found buzz around the room, grins from ear to ear to ear, and continued snoring from Briar, with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out the side.
“So why haven’t you ever mentioned any of this before?” Barret asked Cetra.
“You did not ask,” she answered matter-of-factly, “and I did not know that you knew Barry.”
“Yeah but....”
“Barret, if you do not ask why would I think to tell you?”
“Oh,” Billy grinned from the sidelines and pointed at Barret, “Burn!”
The plan had now become much simpler, all Barret had to do was get to Brock and Barry, or Cetra had to stumble across the pillars, whichever came first the next would follow.
“Look at it,” Billy said with a smirk when he glanced again at Briar.
“You could pop a rapple in his mouth and he wouldn’t even know it,” Rod laughed.
Tiredness enveloped them quickly after that, but Barret lay awake well after the others had given in to sleep. He was waiting for his clothes to dry.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE