She looked down and reached for Amelia.
Amelia stretched her right hand up toward Winter, and Winter reached down as far as she could, but she could not quite touch Amelia’s fingers.
“Reach!” Winter yelled desperately. “Reach!”
Amelia groaned and stretched her wrinkled hand upward.
“A little more!” Winter cried. “Just a little more!”
Amelia blinked her eyes, and as she opened them up she looked at Winter and curled her fingers inward and away.
“Amelia!” Winter yelled.
The water began to fill in even more, rising around Amelia like a coiling snake. Winter could feel the gunt softening. Soon it would seal off the shaft the frozen water had created.
“Give me your hand!” Winter demanded.
“Do as she says,” Geth ordered Amelia. “Grab her hand!”
Amelia’s fingers opened just a bit and then closed to make a tight fist. Winter and Geth stared at her in despair.
“Go,” Amelia said weakly. “Go. Climb before the gunt seals up this shaft.”
“No!” Winter shouted. “Take my hand; I’ll pull you up behind me.”
Amelia blinked sadly.
“I won’t leave you!” Winter cried, still desperately trying to reach down and grab Amelia. “We need you! Leven needs you!”
Winter watched Amelia’s eyes briefly light up with the mention of Leven, but the happiness was quickly gone as the liquid rose up and around her neck. The old woman’s thick glasses magnified the sadness in her eyes.
“Please go,” Amelia pleaded with Winter. “Please. Find Leven and save Foo.”
Geth jumped from Winter to Amelia and began pulling at the neck of the old woman’s dress. “Come on,” he demanded. “We need you. Foo needs you.”
Amelia could only blink as the rising water covered her mouth and nose.
“No!” Winter cried out. “Stop her, Geth.”
Amelia blinked her large, magnified eyes. She closed them and held her breath as water rose above her eyebrows.
“Help her, Geth!” Winter screamed. “Help her!”
Geth looked up at Winter. He was a toothpick, but it was apparent from his small eye holes knitted together that he knew hope was gone. Geth let go of the neck of Amelia’s dress as the water floated him upward. “We have to climb before the gunt fills in,” he declared.
“No,” Winter sobbed. “We can’t leave her.”
But even as Winter whispered the words, she also knew it was too late. She looked down at Amelia, who was now completely submerged in the rising water. The last bit of air escaped from her nose and mouth, sending bubbles up. Despite the dire straits, Amelia looked almost peaceful.
Winter was sobbing, and Geth was bobbing in the rushing water. Never one to turn his back on fate, Geth jumped into a large bubble and rode it upward. As Geth rose, Amelia sank farther into the water. It looked as if she were encased in glass—a wrinkly old sleeping beauty that only a blind and desperate prince might kiss.
Winter could only cry. She hurt inside for herself, but even more, she hurt for Leven. Amelia was his only true family, and now she was gone. Winter wanted to curl up into a ball and let the gunt smother her, but instinct wouldn’t let her. She began desperately clawing at the sides of the wet, muddy shaft, crying bitterly and inching her way to the top as the water pushed her up.
Her hands were bleeding and sore and she could no longer see much, due to the mud and tears filling her eyes and face. Sometimes clean water would clear her vision, but moments later her eyes would be packed with mud again. Her shoeless right foot was numb, and the gunt lining the shaft was growing sticky and making her progress almost impossible.
Just as she thought she could climb no farther, her hand reached the top of the chasm. Using her last bit of strength, she hauled herself out of the muddy shaft and over the lip of the chasm where she collapsed on the ground, crying.
Water sprayed up around her.
Geth was there waiting. He had tried to help pull her out, but being a toothpick, he wasn’t much aid.
The gunt groaned and slurped as it wrapped its sticky self around Winter’s remaining shoe and pulled it off. Winter jerked her leg away from the gooey mess and watched as her shoe became permanently enshrined in the gunt, the small, froglike bodies molding themselves into a continuous thick slab, their expressions and individual forms disappearing as they solidified.
The water stopped spraying.
Winter’s shoe stuck partway out of the gunt, becoming a pathetic tombstone for Amelia.
Winter was a mess for more reasons than one. Her blonde hair, which had never been very manageable or neat, looked like a tangled nest of seaweed. She was wet and muddy, and both her shoes were gone. Her hands were raw and bloody and looked like a couple of cut-up beets.
Winter rolled over onto her back and cried some more. Amelia was gone. Leven was lost, and Foo was in turmoil. A wave of homesickness washed over her as she remembered Reality and what she and Leven had been through over the past few days. A couple of Winter’s Foo memories also returned, but there were still some big gaps of gray forgetfulness in her brain.
She didn’t know who she was.
Geth had the smarts to remain quiet and let Winter mourn.
The night was dark, with the purple sky pulsating. Stars rolled across the canopy like marbles on an invisible track. Occasionally two stars would collide, click, spark, and roll off in separate directions. It would have been soothing were it not for the situation they were in. Foo was beautiful, but even the landscape was wise enough to recognize this as a moment of mourning.
Finally, Winter rolled over onto her knees and crawled to the now sealed-off stream that had helped save their lives. She thrust her raw hands into the still water and rinsed them thoroughly, then splashed water onto her crying eyes. She was covered with mud. She worked on her hair and then her face and arms. She picked up Geth, dunked him in the water, and held him in the palm of her hand.
“I can’t just leave her,” Winter whimpered.
“She is with Hector,” Geth said softly. “We can’t let what she fought for fail.”
“Is there even hope anymore?” Winter asked sadly. “Are we doing the right thing?”
“There is always hope,” Geth answered. “We have secured that. Now it’s up to us to make it stick. We must find Leven, and we must do it fast.”
Geth had not told Winter about his condition, but he could feel himself hardening. He figured that at best he had two days before he would be nothing but a tiny piece of inanimate wood. His small body couldn’t hold his soul much longer.
Winter tried to smile. She looked at Geth in her palm and could see traces of mud still on his head.
“Hold on,” she said.
She dipped him back into the water and washed him off, then gazed for a moment at the reflection of the moon in the dark pool. She could see much more than just the moon.
Winter quickly turned around and saw twelve beings and twelve pairs of new eyes staring directly at her.
And, for the record, none of the eyes were smiling.
Chapter Six
The Unlikely Cog
Dennis Wood slouched in his chair and sighed. The diner was empty except for him and an older couple quietly eating soup two booths down. Dennis was wearing a white, short-sleeved, button-up shirt and tan polyester slacks that required no ironing whatsoever. If for some odd reason you wanted to, you could take his pants, crumple them up, stomp all over them, and they would still shake right out, wrinkle free. Of course, what his pants possessed in ease of care, they lacked in style. Strung through the belt loops of those pants was a thin brown belt closed at the same hole that had closed it for the last ten years. Dennis had gained a pound three years before and lost one since then. He had on brown loafers with a wide Velcro closure above the tongue and was wearing a pair of his usual white socks. His digital watch showed thirteen hundred hours. It was set at military time because it made
Dennis feel militaryish and a part of something he really wasn’t nor would ever be.
Dennis had a big, white head. His light blond hair was thin and almost the same color as his skin. His hazel eyes were small and fuzzy, the pupils looking more like smashed raisins than perfect circles. He also had a pug nose and a tight mouth that opened only when food was coming in or when he had to reluctantly communicate with someone.
“What can I get you?” a middle-aged waitress asked as she stepped up to the table and forced him into a small conversation.
Dennis tried to smile, but his expression more nearly resembled a grimace. Instead of speaking, he pointed to the item he wanted on the menu.
“Turkey sandwich?” the waitress asked.
“No mustard or onions,” Dennis said apologetically.
“Right. And to drink?”
Dennis pointed to the word milk on the menu.
The waitress looked at him as if he were the sole reason she would never date again, took the menu from him, and walked away.
Dennis glanced around the cafe. He was seated next to a window, and through the glass he could see the building he had worked in for the last ten years. He could see the gold plaque attached to the corner of the building near the door. Dennis was too far away to make out the letters on the plaque, but he knew exactly what they said:
Snooker and Woe, Attorneys at Law.
Of course, Dennis was neither Snooker nor Woe, just Wood, Dennis O Wood, the janitor. The “O” didn’t stand for anything. It was just an “O.” His parents had felt he needed a middle initial, but lacked the creativity to come up with anything besides “O.”
For ten years Dennis had cleaned the toilets and mopped the floors in the Snooker and Woe building. He had removed chewed gum from the outside sidewalk and cleaned every surface at least a thousand times. He had also emptied trash cans and ashtrays and passed many people in the halls, always without speaking to them.
For ten years.
And yet, just this morning, after Dennis had changed the toner in the copy machine, Jack Mortley, the man who had hired Dennis, the man who signed Dennis’s checks, the man who had known him for ten years, had had to ask him his name before telling him there was a spill in the break room.
Ten years, and Jack still didn’t know his name.
Dennis smoothed down the blond hairs covering his white head. He worked the knuckles of his hands into his eyes and rubbed. When he dropped his hands to the table, he was disappointed, but not at all surprised, to still be right where he was—having a late lunch, in a cheap diner, all by himself.
The waitress returned to his table and dropped off the sandwich and the milk.
“Enjoy,” she said with little sincerity.
Dennis sniffed. He rotated the plate a half-turn and picked up the sandwich. It was limp at the sides, held together by a long toothpick with purple plastic fringe at the top. Dennis sighed and pulled the toothpick out of his sandwich. He would have simply set the toothpick aside and taken a bite—but, for some reason, as he held the toothpick between his fingers, he experienced a peculiar feeling.
He felt good.
And bad.
Dennis rolled the toothpick between his thumb and middle finger and watched the plastic purple fringe spin in circles. Then he set the toothpick down and took a bite of his sandwich.
The toothpick did what toothpicks do—it just lay there.
Dennis took another bite and looked through the window toward his workplace. He took a sip of milk, watching the toothpick out of the corner of his eye. There was something about it.
He set his glass down and picked the toothpick up again. He rolled it between his fingers. He switched hands and rolled it with the other. He scratched his pug nose and blinked.
He couldn’t understand it.
He couldn’t understand what he was feeling or if he was even feeling anything. He wondered if there might be a gas leak in the diner or if he was finally going loony from all the cleaning supplies and bleach he had breathed over the years.
The toothpick vibrated in Dennis’s fingers.
Startled, Dennis dropped the toothpick into his glass. As he reached in to retrieve it, he tipped the glass over, and milk spilled out onto the table and ran off onto his easy-care tan pants.
Dennis didn’t care. His pants were invincible.
He lifted the toothpick out of the puddle of milk, then stared at it as if it were a diamond ring or a gold coin he had spent years searching for. The old couple two booths down were caught up in their own conversation and as indifferent to the rest of the milk dripping down into his lap as Dennis was.
“Hey, hey,” the waitress scolded, walking quickly up to the table with a rag. “You could’ve used those napkins to stop it.”
Dennis said nothing.
“If you stand up, I’ll wipe the bench,” she directed.
Dennis wriggled out of the booth and stood up, still holding the toothpick in his hand. He leaned over and reached for the handle of his briefcase. He didn’t actually need a briefcase, but he thought it gave others the impression that he was more important than he actually was. He fished a ten-dollar bill out of his briefcase and put it down on a dry part of the table, dropped the toothpick into the case, snapped it shut, and walked out of the restaurant.Outside, Dennis hurriedly turned and headed toward the building with the gold plaque.
Chapter Seven
It Turns Out There
Are Dumb Questions
Leven had transformed from a large, sticky wad of gum, plastered in the branches of a tree, back to his normal self. But there were still bits of leaf and twig stuck to his clothes, up his nose, between his fingers and toes, and matted in his dark hair. A thin green twig was sticking out of the white streak in his hair, making it look like a misshapen dove carrying a tiny branch.
Clover busied himself helping Leven remove the larger pieces.
As he was pulling bits of debris off his clothes, Leven looked toward the chasm they had just blown out of. It was now completely filled with gunt and resembled a broad stripe of snow running through the landscape, with the deep purple sky giving it a kind
of milky texture. In time, after the gunt had settled and lost its stickiness, some of it would be harvested like blubber and burned or used as cooking fuel. But most of the dense, spongy material would become covered with vegetation, providing nutrients for what was growing out of it.
“That was way too close,” Leven said, referring to their escape from the flowing gunt.
Clover was earnestly chewing gum and didn’t say anything.
“Are you still chewing that awful lightbulb stuff?”
Clover’s hairless cheeks reddened, and he cleared his throat.
“What?” Leven asked. “Is that . . . wait, where did you get that gum?” Leven looked around himself.
“Well . . . I . . . I . . .” Clover stammered.
“Is that from me?” Leven panicked.
“I just wanted to see what flavor you were,” Clover explained.
“What flavor?” Leven gasped, still frantically looking himself up and down for a missing chunk.
“It’s not from you,” Clover waved. “It was your shoe. I took a bite before you changed back.”
Leven looked at the one shoe he was wearing. There was a large bite missing from the heel. Leven picked a speck of tree from his nose.
“So, who makes all this candy you have, anyway?” Leven asked. “I haven’t seen a structure in Foo besides Amelia’s place.”
“I know,” Clover complained. “Amelia really lived in the sticks. It’s not good for people to be so isolated. I bet that’s why she’s so chatty.”
“She seems okay,” Leven said. “Now, about the candy, where do you get it?”
“The Eggmen,” Clover said.
“The Eggmen?” Leven asked skeptically, brushing a large leaf out of his hair.
“They’re pathetic warriors,” Clover sighed. “Pathetic. I mean, talk about messy casua
lties. But they make terrific candy.”
“And they use magic?” Leven asked, knowing of no other way to create candy that can turn its chewer into gum.
“No,” Clover laughed. “Magic’s not real. They use dreams. They live beneath the Devil’s Spiral, and as the water from the Veil Sea runs through the massive canyon, it mixes with the dreams. It’s quite a process. I’ll take you there sometime.”
“Devil’s Spiral?”
“It’s one of my favorite sites in Foo,” Clover said. “The spiral eventually forces the water thousands of feet high and keeps the city of Cusp wet.”
Clover began to sniff the air. “Do you smell that?” he asked.
“Smell what?” Leven asked.
“It smells like the tharms.”
“Tharms? What are—” Leven stopped talking and put his hand to his right ear.
Something was moving nearby. Clover turned invisible.
“You’re a great person to have around when things get tough,” Leven whispered mockingly.
Leven looked behind himself. He could see nothing but darkness. The sound of chirping bugs filled the air. Leven turned back, and right in front of him was a grown man about Leven’s height. Leven jumped. The man stood there scowling. He wore an orange robe and had long gray hair that hung down, partially covering his faded gray eyes. He was breathing like an angry bull and had his weathered hands on his hips.
“Leven?” he asked, in a deep, forced voice.
Leven nodded and backed up a step. “How do you know me?”
“The Lore Coil.”
“What’s—?”
“Where’s Geth!” the personage demanded.
“We were separated,” Leven answered.
“Perfect,” the old man said sarcastically. “We . . . I need Geth.”
Leven stood tall. “Who are you?”
“I’m . . . far . . . oh . . . ,” he sniffed, scratching his head as if confused.
“Farrow?” Leven helped.
“That’s it,” the being said, relieved. “You need to follow us . . . me. You need to follow I, me. You lost Geth, but we’ll find him. I think I know where he may be.”