Jamyria: The Entering (Sample)

  Chapter Four

  The Welcoming Woman

  The light touches the earth heating a perfect ring of fresh grass that livens the stark wintry forest. Sunlight filters through the trees overhead casting an emerald glow upon Margo, the canopy showering warm drops. She nestles into the soft grass with her arms stretched over her head to bask in warmth. Her muscles lose stiffness and blood pumps regularly again. All thoughts of white monsters and icicles slip far from her memory….

  The sun grows warmer and prickles at her skin until all of the drops overhead have sizzled away. She expects a sunburn by now but doesn’t bother to check. Not with the comfort of heat in her bones again. No more tingling or numbness, only the toasty warmth that somehow seems to be increasing still. The warm, burning… Scorching even…

  It is suddenly too hot. Overwhelmingly and unbearably hot. In a matter of seconds, it strengthens from a day at the beach to the Sahara deserts to the belly of Mount St. Helens. Margo’s blood boils in fury, violently pumping through her veins.

  She jumps to her feet covering her face, protecting what she can. She has to move — but to where? The only place to go is back into the biting cold.

  Whoosh!

  The ground slips out from under her feet sending a painful echo through her head when it meets the soil. The air in her lungs escapes, and heat stabs her face as the invisible force flattens her.

  Her eyes dart about in search of what caused her collapse. The woods are empty.

  The spotlight intensifies growing into a cloud of heat focused solely upon her. Her body is bound to the earth as if gravity has magnified. She cannot escape; to budge is even impossible.

  The air around her stirs. Not wind, but more a violent charge of energy, a furious swarm of invisible bees whirling around her. And she is forced to remain still and broken and take the invisible beating.

  Her head spins as the light above grows as blinding as the snow globe had. The motion is nauseating, but she keeps her eyes open this time. She has learned throughout the day’s events that closing them will only make it worse.

  A bolt echoes throughout the sky as the source of the light above explodes. Showers of illuminated rain fall, splattering down on Margo’s face and tearing through her flesh like scorching drops of molten metal. She screams and writhes from the impact. Oddly, the places that hurt the most are the inner part of her arms and the back of her neck. The intensity brings tears to her eyes. Like razors digging into her spine. Daggers carving out the core of her arms.

  Margo’s screams do nothing. Nothing but lose oxygen.

  The pressure lifts, the invisible weight no more. Margo slowly looks around expecting to find pieces of her body, pieces of her own flesh, strewn about after this last beating, but she doesn’t. In fact, she feels…good.

  She rises shakily to her feet. Margo stands within the same forest she was in after following that flaming bird, the same forest that had been covered in ice and snow, and it has somehow changed yet again. To look inside this forest is to explore the works of a dream in hard form, granted a chance to see imagination. The colors are hardly hues found in ordinary woods but are more vivid and saturated. The leaves not quite a lime green nor the woodsy hunter green they’re expected to be. Flowers are scattered throughout the branches painted in vibrant neon. Even the cloudless sky is a shade closer to turquoise. It is as if she’s walked into someone’s realism painting in which the artist has slightly mixed the wrong colors, throwing off the whole mood.

  But — and this realization churns her stomach — this is wrong. This feels like someone has played God, and the forest is the result of not mixing the colors just right. Abnormal plants and trees fill the woods. Spiky bits of moss cling to trees like sea urchins. The tree trunks are more russet than brown, some with unusually smooth bark. Wild-looking flowers wear large, exotic petals. Even little things she notices — the soil she walks on being too fluffy or a patch of weeds she brushes against too slick against her skin — are strangely off-putting.

  The great vast of turquoise sky peeks through break in the trees ahead, attracting her attention. She suddenly remembers the city below and sprints to the edge of the cliff to capture the full view of the valley.

  Expecting to find the village as oddly hued as the forest, Margo is surprised to find the opposite. The town is drained of color. The grassless land of dust has a few dozen rows of shacks running down its center. There is little vegetation, which appears to be only several acres of crops and a few trees, though even these plants are gray. There are small plots of land with pitiful tufts of grass to feed unrecognizable animals. The buildings are constructed of what appear to sea-bleached logs, but there is no ocean in sight.

  The sadness Margo feels for the deadened town lifts when she notices movement below. The villagers hurry about as if simply getting on with their lives, not taking notice to the vanishing ice and lava-spewing spotlight from moments ago.

  The arduous drop will pose a problem. She cannot make it safely down from such height. Searching the edge of the cliff for some sort of pathway, her mouth gapes. What she stands on is not merely a valley but a crater, a circular chunk sliced clean out of the ground. The cliff wraps around the city with a several miles between Margo and the other side.

  She scans the entire lap, but can find no obvious way below. She does notice something; though, it is not nearly as safe as she had hoped. A tree grows from the valley below extending above top of the cliff. Its branches brush against the side of the bluff and grow into the wall of the cliff, forming a perfect ladder. It must have been planted for this very reason, she decides.

  She reaches out and grabs onto a sturdy limb about eye level and peeps over the edge. The ground below sways. Margo and heights are not exactly on good terms. But she only needs to step a few feet over and then climb down.

  Something catches her attention causing her to freeze in place. The inside of Margo’s left arm is covered in congealed blood. She runs her fingers over the area flaking off some of the loose pieces and looks down to finds various blood splatters all over her clothes. From the cat, maybe?

  It wasn’t. It was from her.

  Looking closer at her arm, she finds a series of oddly shaped cuts, almost pattern-like. Her other arm has similar cuts, too. What’s strange is that they don’t hurt. If Margo hadn’t looked, she wouldn’t have even known they were there. Strange, yes, but the questions will have to wait until she is on lower ground, or at least not halfway hanging off a cliff.

  Margo gulps back her fears and pulls herself onto the tree, focusing on the injuries on her arms rather than the jagged rocks below.

  As she climbs down, she tries thinking back to what might have happened to get the cuts. The cat did jump at her, but she didn’t feel anything from the impact. She was already dead by the time she hit Margo. The first time she struck, her claws weren’t even out. Even if it were from the cat, these cuts are not in the shape of claws but more like…etchings.

  There isn’t much else Margo can think of as she lowers herself down the tree. The branches hold their form as she drops down onto each one below. The gray stone of the cliff runs parallel to her with veins swirling a design on its exposed surface.

  Margo freezes mid-step as she remembers something.

  The light, the explosion, it had hurt her arms. Actually, it was the very spot of these cuts. The back of her neck hurt as well, and, as she thinks this, she reaches her hand back to where she had felt the pain. And there it is: another grouping of slightly healed gashes. But what can this mean? Is this one of the unusual punishments received when someone enters this place, whatever this place may be?

  Margo lowers herself onto the next branch, taking another glance at the strange cuts. Her mind is overloaded with questions. And still with no one available to answer them. She can hardly keep up with the events that have occurred.

  She reaches the bottom limb, still about five feet from the ground, and slings herself down without mis
sing a beat, landing in a low crouch.

  “Huh?” she says out loud, somewhat surprised at herself.

  She shakes away the thought and turns to look at this new part of the land. Margo has never been to Arizona, but this is what she pictures it to look like: hardly any green, the minimal shrubs, dull colors, dust and sand fading into the distance, the bare cliffs….

  Looking up, she can see the stretch of unnaturally turquoise sky, a glorious sea whose shores are broken off by the cliff’s edge. The few rays of sunlight that shine from above cast eerie shadows into the valley.

  A stone wall wraps around the strange city, exposing only a cluster of rickety, gray rooftops. Directly in front of Margo is a looming door, and she is thankful for her first bit of luck. She only hopes that once she reaches the village she will be able to get the answers she needs. Most importantly, what happened when she touched that globe?

  The smells of dust and burning wood fill her nostrils. She chokes as a gust of wind spreads sand past her. It is disorienting to experience the humidity the moist forest offered only moments ago disappear into this dry wasteland. The ground below is more sand than soil and slips beneath her feet, which only adds to her weariness. At least most of the sun has fallen behind the tall cliffs.

  The wall doesn’t have the look of machine-construction. Mix-matched rocks in different shades of gray, tan, and brown are held together with what looks like mud. The door is made of unstained wood and has a rough, natural texture to it. There is no handle.

  She’s unsure whether it would be appropriate to just push the door open or knock first but eventually opts to give a courteous knock. She holds up her fist and taps lightly a few times, hardly creating a sound through the thick wood. That does not stop her from being heard. The door swings open.

  A small man with a curved back grips the frame of the door with stubby fingers blackened in grime. His eyes are sunken into his leathery face and do not seem to follow one another properly. He has no teeth which causes his grimace to disappear into his face. What’s left of his paper-white hair grazes the top of his shoulders and wisps in the wind.

  After the brief look over, Margo realizes he is glaring at her. “Come in, come in,” he fusses.

  Suddenly, she feels a bit uneasy and reconsiders. She cannot be sure that if she goes in there she won’t come out looking like him — if she is to come out at all.

  He grows impatient with her hesitation and reaches out for her hand, giving it a tug.

  He freezes, staring down at her, eyebrows tightening. Margo doesn’t know what he sees, but grows even more uncomfortable with his boorish staring.

  Suddenly, his eyes widen in realization, slightly popping a vein out of his temple. His good eye jumps from Margo’s face to whatever it is he is gawking at.

  “Could it be?” he whispers to himself. “Already…?”

  Margo tries to hold it together, but is unable to control her features.

  Instead of pulling her into the city, he quickly steps out with her. A few clumsy tugs on his poncho, and he shoves the heap into Margo’s arms.

  “Put this on,” he says urgently. He glances around nervously.

  It smells like stale dirt and body odor, but Margo is too frightened to do anything but obey — and pray she doesn’t catch anything. She breathes through her mouth.

  “Follow me.” He is whispering again. “Quickly. Keep your eyes down.”

  He takes her by the arm again but only long enough to pull her through the open door. Once they are in the village, he lets her go and scurries off into the streets.

  His request to keep her eyes down proves difficult. There is much to see. Now that the ice has vanished, the streets are full of peculiar people. Most stay busy with their tasks or hustle on their way to where ever it is they are going. Some shop from the little kiosks set up along the streets, chatting about. Others pop in and out of buildings. On occasion, Margo receives an unwelcoming, sneering expression.

  Something is very wrong here.

  There are even fewer plants inside the walls, not even the shrubs that grow on the other side. The sandy roads are packed down harder than outside the gate, and every time the wind blows, a cloud of dust swirls through the air. Margo is reminded of an old western movie. She almost expects to see a bar fight in one of the buildings or a lone tumbleweed flipping down the road.

  The graying buildings stand no more than six feet apart. A short set of steps lead to each door, and a small sign hangs outward from above every doorway with a name carved on it and a number hung beneath. She passes ‘Herbs and Plants, Number 23’ and ‘Fruit, Number 27’ before nearly losing sight of the little man in the crowds. She quickens her stride.

  The people here are wrong, Margo notices as a couple duck out of a shop labeled ‘Eyewear, Number 21.’ That’s when she realizes what is bothering her: their attire. They are all dressed in different styles of clothing. Some are from a different era. Those wear anything from tattered bell-bottoms to long ruffled dresses that could have easily been from the early twentieth, maybe even nineteenth, century. The others, though fewer in numbers, are dressed more modern — jeans, short trendy dresses, business suits, or graphic tees.

  The crooked man reaches down to give Margo’s hand a yank. Apparently, she still isn’t going fast enough. He takes a sharp left around the street corner weaving through the crowd.

  They stop abruptly in front of the third house on the left. ‘Jamyria Welcome Center, Number 12’ reads the sign. The building is small. There’s nothing that makes it any more special than the other graying, dilapidated buildings she’s seen.

  But she can’t study it for long. He steps up behind her and gives her a push toward Number 12.

  “Hurry,” he fusses.

  Margo climbs the rickety stairs and opens the door. He shoves her into the dark room, and the door slams shut behind her. There is hardly room inside. Bookshelves line all four walls containing stacks of papers along with other odds and ends—a clock, a telescope, a few framed drawings, a skull. The room is lit mostly by the high windows that peek over the tops of shelves and a few lit candlesticks.

  In the room’s center sits a woman at a small desk, smiling wide. Compared to the townspeople of this dirty place, she is clean-cut. A sleek, chocolate ponytail coils around her shoulder. On her perfectly curved nose rests a pair of trendy red glasses. Even sitting down, it is obvious that this woman is tall and slender. Her presence is misplaced in this town.

  “Welcome to Jamyria,” she says, smile still in place. She rises to greet Margo, extending a soft, well-manicured hand, which Margo shakes reluctantly, embarrassed by the roughness of her own against this lady’s delicate palm. But the woman doesn’t seem to notice — at least, she does not say. In fact, her warm spirit is welcoming.

  “Jamyria?” Margo asks a beat too late.

  “Oh, sweetie, I know it’s difficult to understand…or to take it all in at first, but you’ll soon know everything.” Her face is strained as she speaks, almost sympathetic. “We’ll help you get settled in.”

  “Miss Saunders.” The gruff voice comes from behind Margo. She hadn’t realized the hunched-back man was still there. He shuffles his way over to the lady to whisper something in her lowered ear. Her warm smile shifts to something harsher. They both glance up at Margo at the same time.

  “Impossible.” It is nothing more than a whisper, but the intensity of the single word is not fitting for such a sweet face. Margo wishes to look away from the woman ferocious glare. And then, her expression relaxes and her voice calms. “Well, that is an interesting theory, Dawson, but we will have to investigate this further.”

  She looks down upon Margo sternly. The man is still glaring, too, which makes Margo feel very uncomfortable once again. The stench from the poncho suddenly returns causing her to gulp back bile.

  “Dawson,” the lady continues, softening up her face a bit. “I shouldn’t have used the word ‘impossible.’ It’s just…unheard of.
Thank you for bringing her to me.”

  And with that, the little man nods and scoots his way out the door.

  “Tell me,” says the woman stepping closer, arms folded across her chest. “What happened to you arms?”

  Margo takes a step back realizing what they’re after now. Her wounds.

  “Let me see,” the lady says pulling at the hem of the poncho. Though her stomach clenches, Margo obeys and removes the smelly garment.

  Mouth dropping open, the woman studies the rows of cuts that run the length of Margo’s arms. The blood has thickened and scabbed over into jagged marks. She turns her face away, not wanting to see the injuries she sustained without a conscious realization.

  “There’s so much,” whispers the lady. “So many…”

  Her eyes follow the lines on Margo’s inner arms, truly studying it as if it is some encryption she understands.

  “There was a light,” Margo says quietly, unsure of what else to say to answer her earlier question. “It exploded, and I think…it cut me…”

  Margo flushes with embarrassment. Why should this woman believe her? Hearing the words spoken aloud shames her. She would label herself as a lunatic had their roles been reversed.

  Except, from the knowing look on the woman’s face, she just might believe her story.

  “And my neck,” she continues with a little more enthusiasm, lifting her hair to share the other cuts with this stranger.

  “More?” the lady asks, though she is already lightly tracing her fingers around the cuts. Thankfully, it doesn’t hurt, like areas are desensitized. “So it is possible.”

  Margo is unsure whether she is asking a question or simply stating a fact, so she remains silent.

  “You’re going to have to come with me.”

  Margo nods. She doesn’t have many options to choose from. Besides, she has never been on her own before, and this lady is the most decent person she’s yet to encounter.

  She dons her bag from under her desk and hands Margo back the poncho. “Put this back on, honey.”

  Without hesitation, Margo pulls the smelly thing back on and holds her breath again. She understands her reasoning for the cover-up, though; the wounds seem to attract a lot of attention.

  They step out onto the small porch of the Welcome Center. Margo attempts to look inconspicuous in the middle of this strange town — Jamyria. The people scurry by on the streets. A variety of emotions pass her ranging from anger to sadness, depending on the person, but Margo notices that nobody looks happy. Except one.

  The lady turns to lock up the building, and meets Margo’s gaze with her blazing smile. “I’m Janie Saunders, by the way.”

  “Margo Grisby,” she returns, nodding once.

  “Margo,” repeats Janie. She holds her hand out toward the street, a cue to start walking. “The town isn’t much to look at, but we’ve done the best we can.”

  Margo doesn’t reply, but instead hopes for further explanation which does not come. Janie leads the way around the opposite corner that Margo had been brought in on. This time she isn’t instructed to keep her head down, so she tries to absorb as much of the town as possible. The daunting shadows from the cliffs cause it to feel darker than it is.

  The walk is short, only about a block from the corner. Janie stops in front of a building that looks more like a cottage rather than a cabin. Instead of wood, it is made of stone similar to the surrounding wall. ‘The First Man, Number 1’ reads the signage overhead, the most ornate sign in the village. The letters are painted in gold bordered in winding green ivy, and it’s attached to the house with scrolling tendrils of iron.

  Janie walks up to the door with her arm around Margo’s shoulder and knocks. Minutes pass before the shouts start on the other side of the door.

  “What do you want? Come to bother me some more? To question an old man?” he shouts. “I’ll blast you all to hell if I have to, I will! Blast you all —”

  “Nick, it’s me,” Janie laughs.

  The door swings open. A tall, lanky man leans out with his eyes wide and full of excitement behind his dark-rimmed spectacles. He looks in his late fifties with glossy blue eyes and short gray hair sticking out in several directions.

  “Janie!” he shouts pulling her into his embrace, bouncing a bit. “It’s been so long.”

  “It’s been no more than two days, Nick! Honestly, you make me feel like I never visit when you talk like that.”

  Margo’s hunches over in the corner of the porch awkwardly as they exchange their brief conversation. She wishes to escape their pleasantries. How can they act so happy amidst such a drab town? How can they pretend the ice had never occurred? She wishes to disappear.

  “So, what is it that brings you this way?” he asks, still clinging to Janie’s arm in excitement.

  “Well,” she says bringing his attention over to their guest. “I have someone I think you’d be interested in meeting.” Her smile beams on as she gives him a wink.

  His face suddenly goes slack as he takes Margo in. “Has it really been fifty years?” he whispers.

  “So it seems. Time flies around here, eh?”

  “It certainly does,” he muses. He can’t take his eyes off Margo, and she now knows why.

  It takes him a moment to snap out of his gaze, giving his head a shake. “Well, come in,” he waves. “We have much to discuss. Janie, start some tea. I’ll heat up the stew. Come in, come in.” He tugs Margo inside. A slight annoyance creeps through her after being pulled around again, but she enters without a fight.

  His home is polar opposite from the Welcome Center. The walls are the same stone as the outside decked in a variety of sketches and paintings (Margo wonders if he provided Janie with the sketches she spotted in the Welcome Center). The honey wood furniture warms and invites. She follows them into the small kitchen — which is even smaller than her parents’, if that’s possible. Gray stone continues throughout the room, hollowed out in some places to create storage crevices, and is topped with an ancient, honey-colored wooden countertop. In the center wall is a stone fireplace with a fire roaring and licking at the iron pot he places in the flames.

  “Have a seat,” Nick offers, pulling out a chair.

  Margo glances down at the chair and recognizes the warmth in her cheeks. For the first time this afternoon she truly feels safe. It is in the arms of these two strangers she takes comfort, and she is gracious to happen upon them.

  Just as she is about to accept his seat, her smile quickly fades. Before she hadn’t noticed that his right hand is completely covered in dark scars very similar to her own cuts. A vine-like pattern scrolls across the back of his hand.

  What she also hadn’t noticed is that half of his hand is missing. He lacks his ring finger, pinky, and the outer half of his palm. A chunk has been sliced clean off.

  Margo feels her mouth fall slightly open, and snaps it shut, feeling rude.

  “As I said before,” Nick says darkly, “we have much to discuss.”