“I’m doing this for Foo,” he said to himself, only just beginning to feel the power and purpose such a place as Foo really held.
“So, I just . . . flatter it?” he asked.
“Yes, and you’d better sound sincere,” the bird whispered.
Leven stepped up to the very edge of the bridge and cleared his throat. His stomach was even more uneasy. He looked out over the gorge. It was so wide he couldn’t clearly see the other side. By now the night was fully upon them and the moon shone bright. The moon’s light was like white syrup being drizzled slowly over the entire scene. The light was so dense that bits dripped from the sides of the bridge and dropped in zigzag lines into Fissure Gorge.
“How come the moonlight doesn’t drip straight down?” Leven asked Clover.
“The gorge is filled with soft and hard air that makes up a maze of sorts,” Clover answered. “If you were to fall off into it you might just as easily fall to the side or diagonally, or down, or even up. The air never stays the same. The heat at the bottom belches, and as the warm air rises, the composition of air within the gorge changes. Things that fall into the gorge can sometimes be suspended in the air for years and never reach the bottom. I had a friend who threw a pout in there years ago, and last I heard it was still screaming and falling in one direction or another. People and animals have fallen in and eventually died of old age, trapped in the air, their decaying bodies floating around until they’re gone.”
“That’s pleasant,” Leven said.
“I know.” Clover pointed. “See how the moonlight slides and drops so beautifully?”
“So if we fall in, the air will catch us before we hit the bottom?”
“More like trap you,” Clover said. “There are things worse than ‘splat.’”
Leven looked into the gorge and watched streaks of moonlight sliding back and forth and up and down like erratic shooting stars.
“We’d better hurry,” Clover reminded him.
Leven cleared his throat again and began talking to the bridge.
“Hello.”
He waited a moment for the red in his cheeks to subside.
“We would very much like to travel across such a fine-looking bridge,” Leven continued, glancing at the sentinel bird for approval. The bird nodded as if impressed.
“I’ve been on other bridges,” Leven said, more earnestly, “but none were as impressive or beautiful.”
The bridge seemed to shiver.
“I really would enjoy the journey across you,” Leven said. “I can’t wait to reach the other side and tell everyone what an outstanding job you do.”
The bridge really shivered, and the bird practically beamed.
“I think that will do it,” the bird whispered, nodding happily.
Leven glanced at Janet and then down at his feet. He touched the edge of the bridge with his toe and quickly pulled his foot back. He shrugged his shoulders, closed his eyes, and took a tentative step out. He had no desire to fall into the gorge, but he would have no way of knowing if his flattery had worked until he started across.
The bridge was still shivering.
Leven took another hesitant step. The bridge was holding up. Leven looked back at the bird and waved.
“Good-bye! I am off to enjoy the beauty and strength of this marvelous bridge,” Leven said loudly for good measure.
The bridge liked that.
Leven walked cautiously but with purpose, deliberately placing each step. He wanted to run, but he had no idea how the bridge would respond to that. He also made the mistake of looking down. It was a long drop. The thin, iridescent ribbon of light at the bottom looked miles away and glowed like molten lava. Leven proceeded carefully.
After about thirty feet Janet spoke up.
“How come you’re whole?” she asked as she floated behind him. It sounded like a question she had been longing to ask for some time.
“Whole?”
“Not like me,” she said.
“You’re a whisp,” Leven answered, not fully understanding things himself. “Most of you is still in Reality. Just a tiny, wisplike part of you is here.”
“So is it because I lived a horrible life?” Janet asked. “Is this what happens to bad people?”
“What?”
“I know I was a hard person,” she said defiantly. “My mother always said I wouldn’t make it to heaven. Now look at me. I am nothing but air. I didn’t even love my own child, and now she’s gone.”
“I’m sure she’s okay,” Leven said indifferently, concentrating on getting across the bridge.
“She left me,” Janet said, “because of who I was.”
“Life’s a long time,” Leven said, walking as quickly as he could and wondering if he was making any sense. “I never thought I’d be here because I didn’t know here existed. Now I’m racing against time to save a toothpick just to be able to live in a place where I’m still not convinced I belong. It’s the same for you, except you’re still who you were in Reality as well.”
Janet’s eyes began to leak again. “That frightens me almost as much as being here,” she said. “Few people get to step away from themselves to look at who they really are.”
Leven didn’t answer. Moonlight poured over him and ran down his left side. He could feel the sensation of it and marveled at the complexity and beauty of Foo. Two stars streaking across the sky crashed into each other and sent sparks flying everywhere. Leven thought he heard the moon sigh.
A small, burning secret raced up from behind Leven and drifted up his leg. Before Leven noticed, it was perched on his nose and staring him in the eyes.
“I had a lifelong crush on Sally Teon,” the secret giggled as it danced on Leven’s nose.
Leven swatted it away. The small secret happily flew off into the night.
“I thought you said it wouldn’t follow us,” Leven whispered.
“That was just another decoy secret,” Clover replied from on top of Leven’s head, still invisible. “The big one won’t expose itself.”
“What are you talking about?” Janet asked, not having seen the tiny secret.
“Nothing,” Leven said, looking in the direction the secret had run.
“So, can I affect what I’m like in Reality?” Janet asked. “I mean, can I help change myself in the condition I’m in?”
“I don’t know,” Leven answered. “But it’s probably not too late to try.”
For a second Janet’s eyes showed hope, but that hope was quickly drowned by more tears. Clover materialized and offered Janet a tissue from his void. She reached for it, and they were both reminded of her limitations.
“Sorry,” Clover said, feeling bad about offering it. “When I see a person crying, I just naturally . . . and, well, I forgot you weren’t really a person but a . . . I mean, people come in all shapes and sizes and well . . . I wonder what it would feel like to be invisible right now.”
Clover disappeared hastily while Janet continued to cry and drift along behind Leven. He walked steadily across the gorge, his feet kicking up the moonlight wherever he stepped. Light flashed like sparks around his shoes.
After a time, Clover reappeared on the top of Leven’s head. The sycophant commented on how much he preferred being carried to walking himself. Leven smiled and reached up and scratched him behind his ear.
Leven could clearly see the other side now. He slowed and looked around him. For the thousandth time in so few days he was amazed at where he was. The bridge across the gorge reminded him a little of the ice highway that he and Winter had driven on while crossing the Atlantic Ocean.
The glow at the bottom of Fissure Gorge belched, and warm air raced up, sending the streaks of moonlight shooting back into the sky.
“Why are we slowing?” Janet asked.
“Yeah,” Clover added, “I don’t want this bridge to change its mind about holding together.”
“It really is beautiful here,” Leven said. “I can’t wait to see Cork and the other part
s.”
Leven kicked up a puddle of moonlight as he picked up his pace. He waved the moonlight away as if it were a batch of bubbles.
“Beautiful?” Janet scoffed. “Don’t be stupid. I think you have—” She stopped herself, realizing that she needed help, not more enemies. “I suppose if you squint it’s not awful,” she tried.
Clover squinted and looked at Janet as if she were daft. There was a light wind, and Janet drifted over just a bit. She tried to grab Leven’s arm for support, but she had that pesky lack-of-substance problem still going on.
“Just let the wind go through you,” Clover advised.
Trying to do so, Janet drifted back a few feet and then began moving forward again.
Sitting on Leven’s shoulder, Clover spoke softly into Leven’s ear. “So, now that we’re out here, why don’t you show me what you dug up?”
“What?” Leven replied, playing innocent but knowing perfectly well that Clover was referring to the metal key he had found when he was digging up the secret.
“I saw that key,” Clover explained. “You pulled it out before the secret.”
Leven wanted to show Clover the key, but he didn’t want anyone to take it away before he understood what it was.
“If it’s made of metal, it needs to be reported,” Clover warned.
“Really?” Leven asked. He thought back to when he had been ten and had attended a baseball game in Oklahoma. Terry had won two free tickets in a radio contest. Terry didn’t want to take Leven, but Addy had screamed and yelled at him about how important it was that Leven have a positive male role model so that he didn’t grow up and come back and steal from them.
The afternoon had been nice—the weather had been warm, the game exciting, and Terry had sat two sections away from Leven. Then, in the sixth inning, as a soda vendor was walking up the stairs near Leven, a foul ball flew up and hit the vendor in the back of the head.
The poor guy collapsed, his drinks bouncing and rolling all over. One can of soda fell into Leven’s lap, and he quickly slipped it under his seat. The vendor was dazed, but after he shook it off he began collecting his sodas. He wasn’t sure, because of the blow to his head, but he thought he was missing three. Leven’s face burned red as he nudged the cold soda beneath his seat with his toe. He wanted to give it back, but he had only tasted soda a couple of times in his life, and he was so thirsty. After the vendor asked four more times, however, Leven sheepishly pulled out the soda and pretended that he had just found it.
His hope was that the vendor would let him keep it. The vendor didn’t. In fact, he didn’t even say thanks. The imagined taste of what Leven had missed was still strong in his mouth.
Now he was afraid that if he showed Clover the key, Clover might make him give it up. Clover smiled and held out his hand.
Leven sighed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the key. It was a golden color, and as a bit of moonlight touched it, the key glistened. Reluctantly, Leven set it in Clover’s palm.
“Beautiful,” Clover whispered. “It’s definitely metal.”
Leven held out his hand, and Clover hesitantly gave him the key back.
“Hold on,” Clover said, reaching into his void. He pulled out a thin string of leather. “Put the key on this,” Clover explained. “Then you can keep it around your neck and you won’t lose it.”
Leven took the leather string and threaded it through the key. He tied a square knot and slipped the key and band over his head. Leven pulled on the neck of his shirt, and the key slipped down, hidden beneath.
“What was that?” Janet demanded. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Clover insisted. “Drift over there.”
Janet did as she was told. Clover disappeared, and Leven touched his T-shirt to make sure the key was still there.
“Be careful who you tell,” Clover whispered.
“I will,” Leven said, rubbing his chest.
“Are you okay?” Clover asked.
Leven didn’t answer, but something wasn’t right.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Entering Morfit
It was considerably warmer than Winter usually preferred it. She was also much hungrier than she had been in a long time. Winter half wished for the filler crisp Clover had given her at sea. Her stomach felt like an empty cavern filled with nothing but wind.
Jamoon had not fed her in captivity, and the only food she had been able to find in the hours since she had espcaped were some young bickerwicks growing at the base of a sweaty fantrum tree. Not all fantrum trees are created equal, mind you. Some thrive well in the cold, others do better in the blistering heat, and some do all right in either. Unfortunately for the trees, however, they usually don’t get to choose where they’re planted. So, those poor fantrum trees who are stuck in a hot place when they prefer the cold will sweat a lot. And wherever there is fantrum sweat, there are bickerwicks.
Bickerwicks grow in clusters around the base of sweaty trees, and as they grow and begin to crawl they emit a chilling zap that keeps the trees cold. Bickerwicks are small, orange, and egg-shaped. They are spongy and have a marshmallow taste, but they are also cranky and make such a fuss as you chew that a person can tolerate only a few of them at a time. In her state of hunger, however, Winter had eaten more than just a few.
She was now regretting it.
Gulping them down as fast as she had, she had failed to chew them thoroughly. Winter could still hear them yelling and fighting with each other from inside her stomach. She willed her digestive system to hurry up and digest them.
Her stomach rumbled.
Winter skirted past a flock of mud-covered little men who were building a large wooden vat, and through a prairie filled with temperamental holes that kept opening and then snapping shut at her. Without the bodysuit she had been shrouded in, her feet were bare. Winter found a couple of thick fantrum leaves and, using strips of kindle moss for laces, fashioned herself a pair of makeshift shoes.
They were far from fashionable, but they fit.
Winter had no clear idea where she had been held captive, so she simply headed downhill.
After about an hour she spotted the top of Morfit in the far distance. The peaks were covered by a large, lazy gathering of thick, orange hazen.
“Morfit,” Winter whispered in awe. From what Jamoon had said, perhaps that was where she would find the pieces of the puzzle that would show her who she really was.
Winter proceeded with caution, having no idea who she would encounter or who was on her side. In fact, she wasn’t sure what side she was on any longer. She wished she could just find Leven and Geth and have them help her sort things out. Winter kept her eye on the top of Morfit and pressed forward, hoping to find a clue there.
Two hours later, Winter could see the base of Morfit at the end of the road she was on. As always, beings from all over Foo were walking toward Morfit, carrying boulders that represented their guilt or sorrow or sin. After arriving, they would set their rocks in place and walk away without their burdens.
Winter couldn’t believe how huge Morfit was. Her memory of it was vague, but she couldn’t recall it being nearly this humongous. It sat there like an entire mountain range, its base thick and as wide as a large lake. It was different shades of black, causing it to look as if it were covered in bruises of varied intensity. There were smaller mounds in front of larger mounds and larger mounds circling a massive center peak higher than the rest. At the top of the peak was a lone tower that looked tiny and millions of miles away. All over Morfit there were holes and caves and archways—thousands of openings in the great black mountain. The size and darkness of the place were overwhelming.
“We have to be losing,” she whispered to herself. “Unless I’m on the bad side,” she amended, “in which case it looks like we’re doing okay.”
A high, crumbling brick wall surrounded Morfit. It wrapped around the entire mountain, resembling a fat, decaying worm with moldy growth between its segments. There wer
e four entrances—one on each side of the towering mountain. Outside the wall were round lumps of earth, houses to rants and cogs who had not yet proven their loyalty to the point of Morfit granting them a place to live.
Winter emerged from the woods, breaking from the forest near the entrance at the back of Morfit. Two huge rants stood near the gate. Both held thick kilves and were carefully checking those passing through the gate. Winter watched one of the rant guards stop a traveler and pull back the traveler’s hood to look at his face. They appeared to be searching for someone. The thought made Winter happy, knowing that if they were still looking, Geth and Leven were probably still free.
“I need in,” she whispered to herself.
Winter looked at the ends of her hair and at her arms.
“This won’t do,” she said. “They’ll spot me instantly.” She slipped back into the forest, looking for a wen nest. Winter’s memory was filled with holes, but she had recollections of many small bits of Foo and the people and creatures who occupied the realm. Wens were common birds who laid eggs that were good for only one thing—throwing. So many dreams coming into Foo involved people throwing or smashing things, and the wens were a result of that. They laid eggs that were filled with nothing but color, perfect for young kids to steal and throw at things.
Winter, however, had another use in mind. She climbed seven trees before she found one. A large wen with a pink puffy face, a green pointed beak, and no feathers except on her behind, was sitting in the nest. The wen saw Winter and sighed. She mumbled and then grudgingly moved her plush behind to reveal a nest full of white eggs covered in black diamonds.
“Perfect,” Winter said.
Winter rubbed each egg with her palm, and as she did so the black diamonds changed color. Winter pulled out the three eggs that had shown red diamonds.
The wen, who had been watching, sighed again.
“Work all day just so you can throw things,” the wen complained.
“Excuse me?” Winter asked.
“I didn’t say anything,” the wen lied.
Winter didn’t feel the least bit bad stealing eggs from the wen. She knew the strange birds didn’t lay eggs to create other birds. Most wen eggs were used to torture and vandalize the Children of the Sewn who lived in the roots of the Red Grove. Winter was simply taking the eggs for a more dignified use.