Terry gaped at her helplessly. Addy smiled even wider.
“Fine.” Terry stamped off to the bathroom to pretend he was getting ready for the day. He sat down on the toilet and began to think. This was not the morning he had planned. He rubbed his stubble of beard with his hand and tried to think harder. Sure, he could have spent his mental energy wondering how to find a job, or where the best place to begin looking for work was. Instead, however, every thought was directed toward simply getting that money back so he could blow it as soon as possible at the local bar. Just thinking about looking for work was making him thirsty.
Terry might very well have gone on for hours thinking about the money and growing even thirstier if it had not been for the unexpected tapping on his backside as he sat on the toilet.
He sprang immediately off the seat, screaming and slapping blindly at whatever had touched him.
He yanked his pajama bottoms up and turned to look at the toilet. There, wriggling out of the bowl, like some giant bark snake, was one of Geth’s humongous tree roots. It pushed up out of the bowl like a huge serpent, writhing in the air. Terry’s jaw dropped. He rubbed his red bloated eyes in complete disbelief. Then, as if to prove it was really happening, the root swelled and the toilet burst, sending water and shards of porcelain everywhere. Terry threw his hands up to cover his face as he cowered against the bathroom door, still not believing what he was seeing.
“What’s going on in there!?” Addy yelled from outside the door. “What was that noise!?”
Roots came slithering out of the faucet and drain in the sink, reaching out toward Terry, stopping him from saying anything besides, “Heeeelp!”
The bathroom floor creaked and buckled upward as a huge root pushed up from below the trailer house. Terry fumbled for the door, screaming, wanting nothing more than to get away. He pulled open the door and came face to face with Addy. She was staring at him, her puffy eyes and green face creating a sight almost as frightening as the surreal scene behind him.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she scolded. “If you’ve made a mess in—”
Before Addy could finish her sentence, Terry whipped past her. A thick wet root sprang up from beneath the floor, caught him by the ankle, flipped him across the bed, and slammed him into the wall. The whole house began to lift and sway. Addy stumbled. She was horrified and screaming at the top of her lungs. Had Mrs. Pendle stuck her ratty head out her front door at that moment she would have seen the giant fantrum tree surging and pushing the entire house up from beneath, its roots writhing and thrashing like the tentacles of a crazed octopus.
Terry ran for the window. Addy ran for the door. Both were stopped by thousands of tiny hairy roots that latched onto their feet and lifted them into the air and began whipping them around on the mattress.
Trees don’t normally smile, but at that moment anyone could have seen the grin on that tree from miles away. The mattress whipping wasn’t actually necessary, but Geth felt they deserved some payback for the way they had treated Leven.
After Geth had had his fun, his tiny roots pulled Terry and Addy off the bed by their ankles and dragged them screaming out through the back window. They were whipped about, spun in the air, and dropped with a thump at the base of the tree. Roots were sticking out of every window and door of the trailer house, waving madly.
Before Terry could free himself and run for help, the roots stopped wiggling and began to quickly withdraw, slithering back through the windows and doors and down through the floor of the trailer home. The entire place creaked as it settled back into a crooked, slightly-off-the-foundation position. In a few moments all the roots had disappeared.
Breathing hard, Terry looked at Addy.
“Did you see . . . ?”
“I did,” she said, breathing just as hard and fanning her green face. She pushed her frizzy hair out of her face, wailing. It was at that moment she first noticed the bright red ax lying on the ground near her. She hadn’t realized they owned an ax. She wiped at her tears. “I don’t want you looking for work today,” she finally managed to say.
“I told you I shouldn’t—”
“I want you to get rid of this tree,” she interrupted. “And do it now. It’s never been right. Chop it up, sell the wood, and then you’ll have the money.” Addy worked herself up off the ground and stepped over to the ax. She picked it up, examined its blade, and carried it over to her husband.
“Now?” Terry whined.
“Now!” she almost screamed, thrusting the tool at him.
Terry stood up and tested his knees. He looked back at the house. Through the bathroom window he could see one root still sticking up out of the broken toilet. Suddenly it shivered and water flung off of it as it quickly retracted.
“I don’t think my drain snake could fix that,” he mumbled to himself.
Terry hefted the ax and moved toward the trunk of the tree. He was really thirsty. He drew the ax back and swung. The blade cut deep into the trunk, as if the tree had relaxed to let the ax slice deeper. Addy was almost impressed with Terry’s strength; Terry actually was. He pulled the ax back and whacked again. A chunk the size of a football flew out and landed at Addy’s feet. At this rate Terry would have the thing down and chopped up by early afternoon.
Terry smiled.
Geth stood there, taking every blow.
Trees don’t really enjoy being cut to pieces. Some recognize their place in the world and accept it bravely, but few would actually provoke a human into chopping it up. Geth had done just that.
Whack!
Geth closed his leaves as darkness began to push upward into his trunk and through his branches. Geth could feel his bark pulling away and beginning to separate from the body of wood. His foliage trembled with each blow. The air was becoming black and only bits and pieces of the surrounding scenery were clear anymore. The sky smeared and started to slide to the ground as pain made his thoughts dark.
Terry went at the tree with all his force.
Geth swayed. He was dizzy. Standing tall was quickly not becoming an option.
“Timber!!!” Terry shouted, taking one last swing. The ax sliced deep into the remaining trunk and got lodged. Terry began to violently jerk and wiggle it. As it pulled free, Geth, tipsy from destruction, leaned to the east and toppled, his remaining strand of trunk snapping loudly. The huge tree crashed down next to the rear corner of the trailer house, cracking the roof and crumpling a section of wall. It settled with a whump.
Terry looked at the tree lying there. His house was damaged, but still livable. “Stupid tree,” he spat. Addy turned and went back inside. She had napkins to go fold.
The giant tree was no more.
Chapter Twelve
Divide and Conquer
It is a grand thing to be a stately fantrum tree that stands tall and oversees the world around it. With its massive structure and lush foliage, such a tree can be justifiably proud. Oh, there are a few drawbacks to being a tree. Birds give you no rest with all their constant flittering, chirping, and nesting; kids love to shoot at you with BB guns; and lovers invade your space and wreak indignities on you by gouging their initials into your bark. But those disadvantages are bearable.
There are the more serious drawbacks like, say, death. For example, when a tree is turned into firewood for burning or used to make furniture for sitting. Trees in our world know nothing else. They are born, they live, and then they die. The most they can hope for is to be transformed into the front page of a really historic newspaper edition, or to be shaped into a cane for an important person, or to be made into a polished banister of some huge mansion.
The giant fantrum tree that Terry chopped down and dismembered had aspired to be something much greater than a chair or an ottoman. Geth knew very well what he was doing when he permitted Terry to take him down. Now it was up to fate to take Geth to the next step.
Terry loaded up the wood and hauled it to a lumberyard two miles from the mobile home park. He dro
ve it there in his beat-up old truck, licking his lips the whole time.
Terry was thirsty. Very, very thirsty.
The owner of the lumberyard, Frank Welt, at first had no interest in acquiring such green wood, but when Terry explained how thirsty he was and said how little he was asking for the load, Frank gave him twenty dollars, and Terry was on his way.
Frank sorted the wood, pulling out the largest pieces and piling them under a tin-roofed shelter. He tossed the twigs and smaller limbs onto a heap of scrap he had drying.
Normally there’s not much need to be concerned about what happens to a tree once it’s been downed. It’s a sad thing to lose a tree, but the loss is generally only temporarily mourned. A chunk of this tree, however, was worth tracking. Six inches beneath its bark, in its trunk, next to its lowest branch, was the heart and soul of Geth. And whereas the ax might have killed the limbs and body of the tree, the heart was still faintly beating in this piece. Geth was not done for yet.
“Lousy drunk,” Frank said to himself. “Destroy a beautiful tree so that you can wet your tongue. Pathetic.” Frank ran his gloved hand over the wood he had just bought and moved to go.
“Frank,” Geth whispered, amazed that his reduced size allowed him to vibrate enough to actually make a noise.
Frank wheeled around, looking for whoever had spoken to him. He saw only open sky and his empty lumberyard.
“Frank,” he heard again, this time more loudly and a bit deeper.
“Hello?” Frank yelled.
“Frank,” the wood whispered back.
“Who’s there?” Frank said, bewildered, knowing nobody was around but him.
“Frank . . .” Geth’s voice faded.
Frank looked at the pile of green wood Terry had just delivered. He stepped closer and pushed aside a few of the large pieces, half expecting to find someone buried in the pile. No one was there.
“I must be crazy,” he whispered. “I’m the one who needs the drink.”
He looked more closely at a section of the tree’s trunk. It was a piece about a foot and a half in diameter and two feet long. Protruding from it was a two-inch stump of a thick branch, and almost all the bark had been scraped off it. As he studied it, the chunk of wood appeared to inflate then deflate itself, almost as though it had inhaled then exhaled.
Frank rubbed his eyes, then picked up the piece of wood and held it in his hands. It was warm, and when he squeezed it, his fingers made an impression, as though it were made of clay. The wood reshaped itself as soon as he let go.
“Whoa,” Frank whispered. “Odd.”
A large truck pulled into the lot and honked, and Frank motioned the driver over.
“I’m here for the Tatum load,” the driver hollered.
“I’ve got it all ready for you around back,” Frank replied, nodding toward another shed.
The driver pulled ahead, and as it passed him, Frank tossed the whispering piece of wood into the open bed of the truck.
“One less thing for me to worry about,” Frank said, dusting his hands and heading toward the office to get the forms the Tatum driver would need to sign.
ii
Tatum, Inc. was a manufacturer of a variety of products. The company had its hand in plastics, wooden toys, and handles for yard tools. They also had a division that produced indoor fans and one that molded outdoor chairs. Their best-selling item at the moment was a portable grill that flipped the meat for you. They also made rugs, manufactured doll body parts, and were the North American manufacturer of seven types of garden hoses.
They were diversified; a small arm of their business even manufactured wooden paint stirring paddles, popsicle sticks, and toothpicks.
It was into this division of the company that the driver brought the heart of Geth and the rest of the wood from Frank’s lumber yard. He backed the truck up to a large metal vat and dumped the load.
Geth buzzed. In order to complete his mission, his heart had to stay intact. He was concerned about being reduced to pulp and made into paper. But he was powerless to resist what was happening. It would be up to fate to take it from here and work him into a position where he could find Leven.
A man with big arms picked up the section of Geth’s trunk and heaved it into a rotating bin. Geth tried to call out, but things were moving so fast and there was too much noise. The bin tilted, and its contents were spilled into a vat of liquid chemicals. Geth bobbed around in the smelly mix until he was hooked with a long stick and dragged into an oven. Everything was black and the grinding of loud motors vibrated the building.
The chemical solution Geth had been thrown into was cold, and the heat of the oven was at first welcome, but it soon became unbearably hot. Geth felt as though at any moment he might spontaneously burst into flame. Just as he was ready to give up and turn to ash, he was hauled out of the oven and dumped onto a speeding conveyer belt. Machines whirred, clanked, and screamed around him in the darkness, and he heard the ominous sound of wood going through a grinder. The conveyor belt abruptly ended, and the heart of Geth plummeted down into the grinder. In an instant he was devoured by the blades. The lights in the factory surged and dimmed a bit. One of the workers commented on how that had never happened before and then simply went on with his job.
The rest of the day played out routinely for the workers at the Tatum toothpick factory. The new toothpicks were boxed up and stacked onto pallets and put onto trucks that would deliver them to surrounding states. For the workers, it was an ordinary day. Life just went on.
But Geth was down.
Chapter Thirteen
Realizing You Have Nothing
You may wonder what a messy-haired girl, an obscure boy, and a chopped up fantrum tree have to do with one another, and in doing so you would be justified. Typically a person wouldn’t associate one with the others. A psychiatrist might grow concerned if he or she were to show you an ink blot shaped like a tree and you were to respond, “Young boy,” or “Messy girl.” But thanks to fate, these three were about to become entwined. Weaved together like a rug that humanity was about to unknowingly wipe its feet on.
It’s difficult to know where you belong when the soul isn’t even aware of what its options are. You can easily picture yourself behind the wheel of a fast car or lying on a sandy beach because you have seen pictures of or witnessed such things. But how can a person see himself somewhere his mind has refused to show him?
This was the situation Leven was in.
His entire life he had been told where to go, where to sit, where to stand, what to say, how to act, who he was, and who he was not. Now, fate was finished keeping Leven in complete darkness, but the boy still couldn’t picture his future. Clover had hinted at Foo, but it seemed like a fable being told by a pretend friend. And Leven had a bigger problem that he was even less aware of.
Sabine was searching for him.
Sabine didn’t clearly know it was Leven he was after, but he lusted to find the one who alone had the power to destroy his plan. He couldn’t leave Foo to find that person himself, but he had an army to help, thanks to the dark shadows he cast. Sabine’s horrid thoughts and evil desires consumed him. In his hatred and greed he had become completely dark in the head, sicker than any being had ever been in Foo, which is quite an awful accomplishment, since over time some pretty foul people had accidentally stumbled into Foo. In fact, a number of notable criminals and thugs had made their way into the realm. But even the worst of them paled in comparison to Sabine, who knew nothing but wickedness and rage thanks to an unknown force that controlled him. So profound was the evil within him that the very shadows he cast loathed him and desired to escape his presence.
Of course they could never do so—a shadow cannot exist without a master to cast it. These shadows were a legion of diverse, inky images—short, tall, fat, and thin—desperate, dark, whispering images of Sabine, frantic to escape him, but destined to remain captive to his will. And day by day, minute by minute, Sabine’s shadows multiplied, an ar
my of darkness that was ever growing.
Sabine’s shadows could do things no other being had ever been able to do. Most remarkably, they could slip in and out of Foo effortlessly and at any time. Because they were shadows, they were able to insinuate themselves into the dark dreams of men and emerge in reality. Sabine simply had to exhale, and his slavish minions would swoop over the earth, penetrating the minds of any who entertained selfish or conspiring thoughts. A quick intake of breath, and the dark images of Sabine would come back with a swoosh to the being who cast them. So invasive were Sabine’s shadowy legions they had the power to affect both those in Foo and those in reality, whomever Sabine sought to harm.
Every morning when he awoke, Sabine would step to his balcony, which looked out over the Fundrals of Foo. He would gaze down with evil satisfaction upon the gathering of his shadows, a gathering that stretched endlessly across the base of Ardion, awaiting his directions. Then he would exhale, sending his envoys out of Foo and into the dark dreams of mankind.
His shadows swept the earth, spiraling down through the dreams of mankind, searching for the one soul who had the power to ruin Sabine’s plan—the one soul who could destroy the gateway before Sabine could find it and go through it himself into reality.
Of course, his shadows had been looking for the wrong thing. Sabine had figured that the descendant of the gatemaker would be a grown man—a strong, wise being who could single-handedly step into Foo and destroy Sabine and his evil intentions.
You may doubt their existence, for the shadows of Sabine are not easy to spot, unless you are connected to Foo. But even for those who know nothing of Foo, it is possible to catch a glimpse of them. You can see the shadows searching even now. Watch when a car goes by. See how the light flashes off the chrome, reflecting things so quickly that the normal eye can’t take it in? If you are perceptive enough you’ll see the shadows in those flashes.
Observe when someone waves her arm and her silver watch glistens. The shadows are there. If someone flips a coin, you’ll see how it catches the light in its rotations but how quickly darkness extinguishes the glimmer. It is in these twinklings that the shadows of Sabine can be observed in their earthly flights. These are the fleeting evidences to those who know that the battle continues—the battle in which Leven and Winter were now very much involved.