Kitabı oku: «The Cup of Galfar. Alderosa's Daughter», sayfa 2

2. OF THINGS TERRIBLE AND MAGICAL

Strange things began to happen one hour later when Dad unexpectedly came home. He looked somewhat dejected. It turned out he had been banned from flying planes that day, because he had not passed a reaction time test. That was unheard of, since Dad’s physical abilities were legendary. And now this – he was banned from flying!

Allie was very upset, maybe even more upset than Dad himself. But the most amazing thing about it all was Mom’s reaction, or, better say, the utter lack of any reaction. She continued to apply makeup in front of the mirror. Only then did Allie realize that Mom had been sitting in that very spot for almost the whole hour, since Dad had left for work. That was her Mom, who would never spend more than five minutes on makeup (to be honest, with Mom’s looks she could easily go without).

Allie just shrugged, perplexed, and went to her own room. At that moment, she was not really alarmed. She just started to feel a tiny bit of uneasiness – the kind that feels like a little pebble in a shoe that makes one slightly uncomfortable. Soon enough Allie forgot all about it. She was playing with her new toy – the colorful cylinder that had been found in the fish’s belly. All of a sudden, the seemingly solid cylinder split apart with a soft click, and the blue disk that had been attached to one end floated in the air about an inch away from the cylinder. You could easily stick your finger in the gap – there was nothing there but air. At the same time, the cylinder and the disk retained a mysterious unbroken bond that was keeping them together. Then the blue disk began to glow. At first Allie didn’t notice that because she was playing with the toy near the sunlit window. But when she tried (without success) to pull apart the cylinder and the disk and squeezed the latter in her fist, she saw the soft blue light shining in between her fingers. She took the cylinder to a dark corner of the room and placed it on the shelf above her bed where she kept her toys. Then she stepped back, cocked her head and enjoyed the effect. The cylinder with the glowing disk that floated above it looked like some kind of fantastic candle burning with a steady blue flame.

Allie hurried out to tell her parents of her wonderful discovery. And then she felt a new pang of anxiety in her heart. Something bizzarre was happening to her parents: the most obvious change was that they seemed not to notice each other, even when they happened to pass right by one another. It looked like they just did not see either each other, or Allie. When she tried to ask them a question, she had to repeat it several times until their eyes, staring past her at something else, reflected understanding. Even then, the answer was usually random. Even their voices seemed to have lost all color and feeling.

Dad was, for the most part, sitting motionless on the couch, staring at the same page in his book. Mom was standing by the window just as motionless. It looked as if she was searching intently for something outside. But when Allie came up to her and, taking her hand, looked up in her face, she saw that Mom’s eyes were closed. The girl felt the fear rising in her, and she tried to wake Mom up by pulling her hand. But the hand remained rigid and unyielding, like a piece of wood. At last, Mom opened her eyes and turned to Allie. For a few seconds her eyes were fixed at the girl with a frozen expression, then something moved in them, and a faint smile touched Mom’s lips. Another couple of seconds and she patted Allie on the cheek and walked towards the kitchen. All of Mom’s movements seemed uncertain, as if caught in slow motion.

Allie felt a little better, but she realized that something was wrong with her parents. Maybe they had caught some unknown virus and she should call the doctor. But, however strange their behavior was, they did not look ill in the least and had even more color in their faces than usual. That is why Allie, trying to regain her composure, kept telling herself: “It’s nothing. It’ll go away soon. They’ll come out of it. I’ll just go play in my room for an hour, and then they’ll be fine.”

But an hour passed, and nothing changed – neither for the better, nor for the worse. The only thing was, Mom and Dad’s movements seemed to be slowing down even more. To get away from this depressing sight, Allie was mostly staying in her room. Lemonade, who apparently had realized something was wrong, was there too. Unlike himself, he was timidly clinging close to Allie. She could not make head or tail of such behavior but was somewhat comforted by the cat’s presence.

Evening came. Any hope for Mom and Dad’s speedy recovery was gone. For the past three hours, Allie hadn’t left her room at all. The last time she did was because of hunger. She went to the kitchen and checked out the pots and pans for dinner, but there was none – no one had cooked it. There were only three pieces of fried fish left in the skillet. Allie put the pieces on a plate and was just getting some bread, when she saw a fluffy striped lightning flash by and heard the crash of dishes. Her dinner was on the floor, covered in shattered plate shards.

“Nasty Lemon!” Allie exclaimed with tears in her eyes and raised the loaf of bread as if to throw it at the cat. Lemonade darted toward the door, trampling on the fish and ruining it altogether.

Allie had to content herself with a piece of bread with apricot jam and a glass of milk. When the hunger pangs were gone, she felt a new wave of anxiety. She was sorry for Mom, Dad and herself. Allie felt a bitter lump in her throat and, unable to control herself any longer, cried inconsolably.

Meanwhile, it was already time to go to bed. Allie was still sobbing quietly, but, judging wisely to see what morning time would bring, began to get ready for bed. When she got under the covers, Lemonade immediately found a spot for himself at her feet. The presence of this warm living creature was comforting to Allie. Her eyes were finally dry, only a few teardrops still hung on her eyelashes. The drops were catching and reflecting the blue light of the forgotten cylinder that was still burning like a candle on Allie’s toy shelf. Thousands of many-colored stars were twinkling and shimmering before her eyes. Some of them would begin to grow bigger and take up her whole range of vision, and then all of a sudden they would burst into myriads of sparkling droplets. Allie felt like there was no more room, no more apartment, nothing but the shimmering and glowing space and herself flying through it, bathing in its warm and lovely rays of color. She felt incredibly light and peaceful to the core of her being.

She could not tell how long her wonderful flight lasted – it could have been one minute or several hours. And then something changed. There appeared a black dot ahead that began to grow steadily. The feeling of serene flying was replaced by the sensation of an inevitable fall. Allie had to catch her breath. The black dot ahead was rapidly growing larger and changing its shape. It reminded Allie of something familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Then, in one moment she saw it: with its fins ominously flared and its enormous fang-studded mouth gaping, the familiar fish was rapidly approaching Allie. Somewhere deep inside the thought lurked that it could not be – Mom had already cooked it! But all thoughts were immediately crowded out by the ice-cold terror. The fish kept growing in size with every second. Its unblinking eyes were glowing red and staring at the girl with a menacing, evil look. It made Allie’s heart shrink in fear. The fish’s mouth was stretching into a nasty grin, reminding the girl of someone. And then she realized who it was – Mean Jean! It was Mean Jean herself, wearing her familiar old vest and rain boots. With the fishy grin on her face, Mean Jean was stretching her arms with long gnarly fingers towards the girl. “Allie’s in trouble, deep, deep trouble”, it was either Mean Jean hissing, or the phrase was painfully reverberating in Allie’s brain.

Then everything disappeared all of a sudden. Allie realized that she was in her bed, clutching her blanket tightly in her hands. Her heart was pounding like a hammer.

“That was just a dream,” she thought, relieved. “That’s it, I just dreamed all of it, Mom and Dad being sick. It was just a bad dream.”

“Allie’s in trouble,” she heard a voice somewhere nearby, somewhere at Allie’s feet. It made her freeze. The funny high-pitched voice sounded pitiful and had a queer wail to it. Allie had never heard it before, but she could swear that it sounded familiar.

“Of course she is in trouble, unless we help her,” a different, girly-sounding voice answered.

“But how? What can we do?” The first voice wailed again. “Especially you.”

The voice was clearly mocking.

“I don’t know yet. But you helped Allie once, you said it yourself. And now we have this.”

The voices halted.

“I wonder who they are and what they are talking about”, Allie thought, trying hard not to move. “Let them think that I’m asleep.”

Amazingly, she didn’t feel any fear, just curiosity. Very slowly, she opened her eyes.

***

It was late night, but she could clearly see everything in her room. The room was dimly lit; an unnaturally blue and magical light was pouring from the direction of the toy shelf. Allie immediately remembered the curious cylinder. Then, slowly, she moved her eyes toward the strange voices. There, at Allie’s feet, on top of the blanket, Lemonade was lounging, leaning his head on his paw and squinting at the little blue star with a pensive if not sad expression. The scene looked so comical that Allie couldn’t help but giggle. At the sound, the cat jumped three feet high in the air, flopped back down and pressed himself into the blanket.

“Oh, Lemonade, you are such a coward! But, you might do well if you ever have to compete in high jumps.”

It was the large stuffed monkey talking – Allie’s favorite toy. She’d had it for as long as she could remember and never went to bed without it. According to the family legend, the monkey was given to Allie on her first birthday. The monkey’s name was short and funny – Lu.

Allie had no idea where the name had come from, and didn’t really care. She just knew that she liked it.

And now the toy stuffed monkey was sitting on the edge of Allie’s bed and dangling its feet, as if it were the most natural thing for a stuffed monkey to do. At the same time, it was apparently enjoying looking around, glancing in turns at the cat and at the girl. Allie was staring at her toy with amazement. She was overwhelmed by a whole flood of emotions, but the most intense feeling was, probably, joy that was close to elation.

“Wow!” that was all Allie could say, breathless, sitting up in her bed.

“Oh, it’s nothing much, really,” the monkey made a gesture similar to an actor taking a bow to the delighted public.

“Hey, why don’t you stop playing the sphinx,” she continued, addressing the cat who was still frozen pressed into the blanket, “and let’s try to explain everything to Allie. Everything we know, naturally. And you can listen and try not to be too overwhelmed.”

With these words Lu squeezed Allie’s hand encouragingly with her own soft plush paw.

The cat was still on his guard watching Allie. But, as soon as he saw that she was not laughing but regarding him in a serious and attentive manner, he cleared his throat and said in the now familiar voice:

“Well, what should we say first? In the first place, we need to state that we possess very little information on the matter, because the facts that have come to our knowledge so far do not yet allow us to, shall we say, comprehensively analyze the situation and come to the appropriate conclusions.”

The monkey, who had been fidgeting during this speech, burst out:

“Now, look here, you Stripey, it seems like you’ve spent your whole life studying at the library, not sleepingon top of an old coat in the closet, like you have. You remind me of our principal. Maybe you are him?”

Lemonade snorted indignantly:

“I have always been and always will be a cat. Intelligence runs in my family. Moreover, I have always paid close attention to mass media.”

“That’s true. You have always been good at falling asleep in front of the TV.”

“Lu, Lemonade, dearest, that’s enough. Please tell me everything you know,” Allie joined the conversation so naturally as if she’d been talking with cats and stuffed toys her entire life.

“OK,” said the monkey. “But I’ll be the one telling the story. It’s all because of this thing,” she pointed at the cylinder that was still glowing blue. “Its rays have caused this wonderful transformation that you can witness, both in me and Lemonade.”

“What about Mom and Dad? Did it make them ill, too?”

“In a way, but not really. It’s something different. Your parents… They…” the monkey stammered and glanced at the cat. He nodded. “They are under a spell,” she continued. “That’s what Lemonade and I think.”

Allie started.

“That’s impossible!” she exclaimed incredulously. “A magic spell? Magic doesn’t exist!”

“Well, look at us,” the monkey shrugged.

“But you said that this is different. The cylinder made you talk. It must be some kind of secret scientific gadget. That’s it. Nothing magical.”

The more Allie talked, the less confident she sounded. She wanted to hear the cat and the monkey say that she was right. But those two were silent, and all she could see in their eyes was sympathy.

Allie then fell silent too. She was close to tears, but she didn’t cry and only bit her lip.

“But who did it? And why?” she asked dejectedly.

“That’s the point,” the monkey said. “Lemonade and I have thought about that, and we believe that we know the answer. Do you remember where the cylinder was found?”

“In the fish’s belly.”

“That’s it. I guess you are not naive enough to think this was a mere coincidence?”

Allie only shrugged.

“All right, now think about how that monster appeared in your home. Who put up a fight at the market because your Mom bought the fish right in front of her? Who then paid you a visit and seemed greatly interested in the fish?”

At that moment, Allie vividly recalled her recent dream.

“It was Mean Jean,” she said thoughtfully.

“Correct! She was the one the cylinder was meant for. And the fish was… Well, it was like a mailing box, you understand?”

“Some package it was,” Lemonade muttered under his breath, evidently remembering the fish’s teeth on his tail.

“To make a long story short, it was Mean Jean who was supposed to receive the fish and its contents,” continued the monkey. “I don’t know what went wrong with their mailing system, but, as a result, you and your parents, as well as Lemonade and myself, are now part of this whole mess. And, it seems that your Mom and Dad have suffered the most.”

“It’s all because they ate the fish that was under a spell,” interjected Lemonade.

“Right. It was all Mean Jean’s doing too. She probably did it in order to get hold of the cylinder. It’s a good thing that you didn’t eat any fish. Otherwise you’d have turned into a sleeping beauty by now.”

It was quiet for some time. Everybody seemed to be thinking of what might have been if Allie had eaten a piece of fish. Allie shuddered at the thought. Lu broke the silence at last. She scratched her head with her little paw and, with a somewhat guilty look at Allie, said:

“You know, you can be mad at me, but I’m glad it all happened. Really, I’m the only one who’s had the best of the situation. If not for this whole story, I’d have remained a toy – motionless and dumb, like the rest of them.” She nodded towards the toy shelf with Allie’s dolls. Allie looked there and suddenly was shocked by an emerging idea.

“You mean to say that you are…” she started to say.

“Yes, that’s right. I have not always been what I am now. I used to be a girl…”

“Yeah, of course. But you were bad, didn’t listen to your parents, and an evil witch turned you into a toy monkey.”

“You don’t need to make fun of me. If you don’t want to hear my story, I won’t tell it,” said Lu sadly.

Allie turned beet-red with embarrassment.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Please, do tell your story.”

“OK, I’ll try to remember it all.”

Unfortunately, Lu’s story had many gaps, probably due to the fact that Lu had been in such an unusual state for so long. This is what Allie managed to find out…

3. LU THE MONKEY’S STORY

Once upon a time Lu really had been a girl, just like Allie, only a little older. She was in ninth grade, so she must have been fourteen or fifteen. She was really pretty, even beautiful.

At that moment Lemonade snorted and covered his mouth with his paws, which earned him a slap on the head from the monkey.

“That’s right,” she repeated, “you may laugh as much as you want, but I really was not ugly like you. All the boys at school were crazy about me. But I never made it something to boast about.”

Lu was never conceited and never acted like she was better than other girls, so she had lots of friends. But she only had one best friend. They used to share a desk at school.

When Lu started to tell Allie about her best friend, she realized with horror that she couldn’t recall the friend’s name. There were lots of names from the past whirling around in her memory – Mary, Jane and Rachel, but Lu just didn’t know how they were all related to her. Allie suggested that they call her Lucy, because Lu and Lucy sounded similar. Lu thought for a moment and then declined the offer, saying that Lu suited her better the way she was now, and, besides, she was used to the name.

She had a hard time remembering her parents, too. Not only their names, but even their faces seemed to have been erased from her memory. The only thing she knew for sure was that she had had parents, and also a little brother who was three. There was also a feeling of warmth and love associated with them.

This might seem strange, but Lu clearly remembered everything she had been taught during her nine years at school. She had been an excellent student, and was even now ready to take a test on any subject.

She also remembered well the last day of her normal, human life.

***

It was late spring, and the weather was summery warm. The tender green leaves on the trees were starting to turn dark emerald, but were still fresh and untouched by dust. The chestnut trees were in full bloom, covered in tall foamy-white pyramid blossoms. The air was fresh and clear, the sky was high and blue. It was that delightful time of the year when every school kid was keenly aware of the fact that there were only a handful more days left till summer vacation.

On one of those lovely days the two ninth-graders went to the city park after classes. A traveling carnival had come to town.

After going on roller coaster rides several times each, and taking a spin on the carousel, and bumping around in bumper cars, the girls finally stopped in front of a sign that read “Cave of Horrors” in blood-red letters. The whole pavilion was painted with skeletons, ghosts and many kinds of monsters. The entrance to the cave was draped in heavy black cloth and looked just like a cave mouth. Miniature cars on miniature rails were waiting just outside the cave. Each had two seats. Those who desired to be “horrified” got in one of the cars, which followed one another with a metallic rattle into the pavilion. There was laughter and there were shrieks, as well as wailing and the pop of gunshots (or more likely, fire crackers) coming from the inside. In a few minutes, the cars, with their excited and disheveled passengers, rolled out of the pavilion. The women were, as a rule, giggling nervously and fixing their hair; the men were smiling condescendingly, trying to look unimpressed. No one gave clear answers as to what was inside the cave, so there were more than enough curious people who wanted to find out for themselves. The cars were transferred back to the cave mouth on the rails that went around the pavilion, and they were ready to take in more visitors.

After a moment’s hesitation, the friends gave in to the temptation and went to buy the tickets.

Taking their seats in the car, they gripped the handles and were carried off into the “cave”. The black curtain fell behind the car, and the girls found themselves in a dim space that was lit by colorful blinking lights. A few feet in front of them there was another car that had entered the “cave” a few seconds before they did. The car jerked and made sharp turns and sometimes dropped a couple of feet down. Lu and her friend’s car repeated the same maneuvers several moments later. It felt as if the cars were moving down a cleverly designed maze. There were “horrible” things happening all around them: glowing and dancing skeletons would jump out of a gaping tomb; enormous bats would plunge down from somewhere above, brushing the girls’ faces with their leathery wings; a medieval executioner in a red hood rose his huge glistening axe that then fell on the visitors’ heads, but missed every time as the cars would always manage to carry their passengers past him. It would go suddenly dark, a menacing roar would rumble and some furry paws would grab the passengers’ arms and shoulders. After another sharp turn the car would roll into a dinosaur’s gaping mouth. Terrified shrieks and yells continued non-stop. It was great fun.

The two friends were also yelling and shrieking, fighting the furry paws and dodging the bat wings. They didn’t notice when the car ahead of them disappeared. Only, when they popped out of a pitch-black stretch of the track again, the other car was gone, and they were rolling along between giant stalactites – enormous icicles hanging down from the cave ceiling. Some of them had reached the floor and turned into picturesque pillars. The rail tracks made their way around these pillars. The cave was dimly and mysteriously lit. The girls could see no light source, and it seemed that the ice pillars themselves were glowing, shimmering and sparkling with bright colors. They couldn’t see the size of the cave, but judging by the 50-feet-tall pillars, the tops of which were hidden in the dark up above, the space was truly colossal.

The girls were so awe-struck by the magnificent ice kingdom that they did not at first feel scared or surprised but only looked around in amazement and admired the magical dancing lights inside the blue crystals. It was the icy cold that brought them to their senses. They realized that something bizarre had happened. The cave was, no doubt, a real cave: the car had been rolling along for five minutes now, and there was no end to it in sight. The two friends grew anxious. They decided to jump out of the car and make their way back, but, no matter how hard they tried to unbuckle, the belts would not budge. The girls were trapped in the car that continued to slowly but inexorably roll down the track into the unknown. The cave was gradually becoming narrower; its walls and ceiling were closing in on the girls. Finally they saw a rocky wall ahead with a gaping black hole of a narrow tunnel into which the tracks disappeared.

Lu’s heart was frozen with fear. The dark hole that was fast approaching exuded menace. The girls, eyes wide with terror, exchanged glances and held on to each other. The next moment the darkness swallowed them.

Lu could not be sure whether the following events really happened or existed only as her hallucinations, or maybe both. She only remembered that she found herself surrounded by silent figures dressed in long hooded cloaks. She tried to talk to them and ask them questions, and look under their hoods. She still harbored a hope that it was all just a silly practical joke, a part of the ride, and that everybody would burst out laughing now and take off their hoods, and her fear would evaporate.

To bring this about, Lu quickly reached out towards one of the figures and pulled off its ridiculous hood. The nightmare continued: a hideous toad face was staring at her, its bulging web-covered eyes blinking on top of its forehead, and its enormous half-open mouth studded with small sharp teeth.

Lu felt sick to the stomach and fainted. Then she remembered being carried somewhere on a giant animal. Half-awake, she felt the rhythmic trod and, when she opened her eyes, saw herself lying down on satin pillows inside a lacy canopy on top of the animal’s wide back. Her friend was lying next to her on the pillows. She was motionless, so she must have been asleep or unconscious.

That was the last thing Lu remembered about her human life.

The memories that followed were all related to Lu the stuffed monkey. She remembered her box being opened for the first time; remembered being taken out of the box and placed on the shelf at the store next to other toys; remembered a price tag being pinned to her belly (that didn’t hurt but still felt somehow offensive).

Then Allie’s Dad bought her, and Lu moved in with their family. The monkey watched Allie grow, and it surprised her, because time seemed to stand still for herself. She still remembered herself as the same fifteen-year-old-girl, and she lived off those memories although they were fading fast.

And then – a blue flash that felt like waking up from a dark nightmare, where you cannot move your limbs or escape approaching danger.

“The cylinder rays literally brought me back to life. I can move and talk now. I feel, I am absolutely positive, that I will eventually remember everything,” Lu said enthusiastically. “Maybe I will be myself again. What do you think?”

She looked at Allie hopefully.

But Allie was so fascinated by Lu’s narration that she missed her last question. The whole story was so incredible that Allie wouldn’t have believed a word of it, if she’d heard it from somebody else. But this… this was the living proof of the monkey’s words. You could reach out and touch it. Allie did just that: she touched the monkey’s soft plush head and petted it. Lu clung to her hand gratefully and sighed. Then she pulled away with determination and said:

“All right, we have no time for all this touchy-feely nonsense. We need to help Allie’s parents. And, I’m sure, Allie’s in danger too. Lemonade, what do you think?”

The cat had been lying down that whole time with his head on his front paws and his eyes closed. He didn’t respond to Lu’s question, and the monkey grabbed and pulled his ear:

“Wake up, sleepyhead! The food’s almost gone!”

Lemonade shook his head, yawned and stretched:

“I believe those mice come from the same hole,” he murmured.

“Oh, come on, there are no mice here. Wake up already!”

“I wasn’t sleeping. I was thinking.”

“Oh really? What were you thinking about?” Lu asked mockingly.

“I was calculating how old you are. You know what I think?”

The cat went silent and started to lick his paw.

Lu slapped his paw impatiently. Lemonade looked at her in surprise and met with an expectant questioning glare.

“Oh, right,” the cat continued. “Allie is ten now, isn’t she? When you got in all that trouble, you were fifteen. Which means…”

“Which means that you are twenty-five years old now, Lu!” Allie finished Lemonade’s sentence, feeling excited and horrified at the same time.

“Not exactly,” pronounced Lemonade, unperturbed. “This would be correct if we knew for sure that Lu got to the toy store right after she stopped being human.”

He paused for effect and gave them a sly look.

“But, we do not know that. What if there was a year in between? Or ten years? She could be as old as my own grandmother now.”

“I used to pull such grandkids by their tails back in my days,” Lu was getting hot under the collar.

However, Lemonade’s arguments seemed pretty reasonable.

“Well, I don’t feel old, even twenty-five years old. I feel like a girl, just like I used to be.” Lu shrugged, puzzled.

“‘Pull by their tails,’” muttered Lemonade, whose feelings were hurt. “Just look at yourself.”

“Guys!” Allie pleaded, “Let’s not start a fight. We’ve got more than enough trouble on our hands. Let’s better think what we should do next.”

That was hard to argue with. Putting their petty disagreements aside, the strange little group began to plan their further actions.