Green Cheese and Stardust
by Evelyn Puerto
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 2
He was better than struggling alone. I trotted after him as he ducked around corners and slinked down alleys. But these were no streets I’d ever seen. Instead of asphalt and concrete, I walked over fitted stones. At least in places. I tripped over a missing one, and only my companion’s powerful hand kept me from falling.
Barren trees lined the roads. The middle of the street was devoid of the stones. In the dark, it looked like a flower garden in winter: a few scraggly twigs, dirt mounds, and fallen leaves.
I peered through the dim light. The buildings flickered. Some looked like stone structures built in the Middle Ages. Others gleamed with glass and steel, with displays of high-tech gadgets or designer shoes. Something about it seemed familiar. I stumbled after him in a daze.
He must have carried a GPS in his head to be able to navigate that maze with such confidence. We darted through a foul-smelling alley onto a well-lit side street. The noise of the riot had faded.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He didn’t answer. Every time someone was rescued in stories, no explanations were ever forthcoming until they reached safety. Which made sense on one level. But why I should follow him without any assurance was a question. For all I knew, he was an enemy of my aunt’s.
A group of people in uniform strode in our direction. “Quick, take my arm,” my guide said. “And hide the bottle.”
I slid my hand under his elbow and tucked the bottle under my fleece, pressing it into the space between the two of us. He arranged his arm in front of mine to hide the blood staining my sleeve. Good thing my fleece was dark blue. In the darkness, the blood wouldn’t be noticeable. I hoped.
“Keep your eyes on the pavement. Don’t look up.”
Great. I’d landed in some weird country that didn’t allow women to show their face or something. I needed to have a talk with my aunt when I got home. If I ever did.
The uniformed group drew near. They walked in three pairs of four males, two females. I kept my eyes down as ordered, which was surprisingly hard to do. Every survival instinct I possessed was screaming for me to look up, to face whatever danger neared.
“Evening,” my guide said. “Peace for all.”
The patrol all murmured in unison, “And equity for you” when they passed us. My escort didn’t release the pressure on my arm until we’d walked down the block and around the corner.
* * *
We hurried through a gate and entered a courtyard lit by a single streetlight. Planters rimmed the sides, and a fountain burbled in the center, creating an oddly serene atmosphere like an oasis of calm. A dark figure rose from a bench and approached. I sucked in a breath.
“This isn’t the right girl.” That smooth alto voice could only belong to a woman. She was nearly as tall as the man, but willowy, her blonde hair gleaming silver in the moonlight.
“She knows Linda,” my guide said.
“Phillipa has auburn hair, not black.”
“What do you want with my sister?” I asked.
The woman eyed me. “You must be Emma.”
“How do you know my name?
“Look, she’s bleeding. Can you clean her up?” The man growled the words.
“Why didn’t you say so? Come here.” The woman’s tone sharpened, as if she was speaking with an annoying child.
When I hesitated, the man poked me in the spine. Still clutching the bottle, I walked toward her.
She gestured for me to sit. “Show me.”
OK, then. Clearly, she wasn’t much for small talk. I shrugged out of my fleece and yanked up my sleeve. Half-dried blood crusted over a long slice along the outside of my forearm. I winced, more conscious of the pain now that I saw the wound.
The woman made a clicking noise. “Long, but not deep. We’ll get you fixed up in no time.”
She extracted a tiny jar from her bag. With a quick twist, she opened it and stuck her finger inside. She smeared my arm with a pink paste that, at first, stung like alcohol and then soothed like aloe. Then she wrapped my arm in a cloth.
I studied the woman. She was middle-aged with olive skin and a crooked nose, as if she’d broken it too many times. “Who are you people? Where am I?”
She ignored my question and dabbed my swollen eye with the paste.
“Why won’t you answer me? How do you know my Aunt Linda?” A headache pounded behind my eyes.
The woman’s eyebrows raised. “She didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
The man walked over and crossed his arms. “It was supposed to be Philippa.”
The woman rolled her eyes. “I know that.” She gave me a quizzical look. “Why are you here? It’s not your turn.”
Every answer they gave made things more confusing. Now that the pain in my arm had faded, I was more conscious of my racing heart and the confusion threatening to morph into panic.
The woman pulled a bottle of water from her pocket and handed it to me. “Drink. We’ll try to explain.”
I eyed the water, unsure if I should consume it. Thirst and my intensifying headache made me throw caution to the wind; I gulped it greedily.
The man settled his bulky frame on the edge of a planter. “I’m Argus and this is Saga.”
I shrugged. Their names meant nothing to me.
Saga leaned toward me. “I’m not sure what question you want answered first. We’ll start with where you are. Can’t you guess?”
“The last thing I knew, I was in my aunt’s kitchen. Then I landed in the middle of a riot.” I rubbed my aching head. “This can’t be happening.”
“Don’t tell me,” Argus said. “You popped the cork from the bottle, right?”
I blinked. “How did you know?”
“Other than you were holding it? The sound of the cork opened the portal. The bottle brought you here to its own world.”
Right into the loony bin was more like it. I decided to humor him. “And what world is that?”
“One that parallels your own. You have heard about the multiverse?”
I ignored his condescension. Everyone knew about the multiverse. Getting there was impossible. I folded my arms. “You’re telling me that’s where I am? Some kind of parallel universe?”
He nodded. “Got it in one. Smart girl.”
I rolled my eyes. Crazy girl, for even listening to him. “So that’s how I traveled from the kitchen to the street in half a second?” Saying it sounded insane. But that was exactly what happened. My heart sped up. I didn’t want to be in some sci-fi fantasy nightmare. “How do I get home?”
Argus and Saga looked at each other. “Well, you see,” Saga said, “you’re here to complete a task.”
Of course. “What, destroy the One Ring?”
“No,” Saga said.
“Destroy horcruxes? Or ice zombies?”
“No,” Saga snorted. “nothing like that.”
“What in the world is a horcrux?” Argus asked.
I couldn’t resist. “Defeat a mind flayer?”
“Nope.” Saga scowled at me. “Are you done?”
“Is someone going to explain what a horcrux is?” Argus asked.
Saga swiveled to rake him with her glare. “We’re not wasting time with the girl’s nonsense.” She pivoted back to me, her stare even more demanding. “Are you sure Linda didn’t explain?”
“No. She let me into her house. I opened the bottle. And here I am.” I frowned. “The last thing I heard was her saying I shouldn’t have touched something. What is that supposed to mean?”
Saga bit her lip. “I suppose she meant the bottle. She should have explained matters to you first.”
“You realize we’ve been talking for ten minutes, and you’ve told me nothing.” Which wasn’t precisely true, but I wanted to go home. Like an hour ago.
Saga sighed. “Linda was an archeologist, you know that?”
I nodded.
She continued. “She was on a dig in Turkmenistan when she opened a portal to our world. Imagine her surprise when three people jumped through it.”
I didn’t have to work too hard. “Then what?”
“They told her of the troubles facing our world. How more of the world’s leaders were becoming power-hungry. How they were using their magic—”
“Wait. What?” I leaned toward her. “Magic? You have actual magic here?” I didn’t believe her story, but magic could be cool.
“Yes, there is.” Argus glared at me; his gaze as fierce as the calico kitten’s had been when I interrupted her nap. “In case you haven’t noticed, you’re in a different world.”
I snorted. “The next thing you’ll be telling me is the moon is made of green cheese.”
Saga raised her eyebrows. “How did you know?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Because,” I said slowly, trying to remind myself I was dealing with crazy people, “we have a myth about it. But everyone knows the moon is really made of iron, nickel, and minerals.”
The two of them burst into laughter.
“It is? Then how do you explain that?” Saga pointed to the sky.
I looked up, noticing that the moon now had several more bite marks.
Saga shrugged. “What else do dragons eat?”
“I don’t know, fairy dust?” I spat out the words.
Argus shook his head. “I don’t know what fairy dust is. We use stardust.”
I stared at him. Every sentence he uttered made this conversation more bizarre.
My mouth still open, he continued. “For centuries, we’ve used stardust for everything. We use it to fly, to power our machinery, to heal.” He pointed at my arm. “It was in the salve Saga used on your arm.
“But as I was saying” — he paused and glared at me, as if daring me to interrupt — “some powerful magicians decided to control all the magic for themselves. They convinced everyone that if they drank a potion laced with stardust, they’d have greater powers. We all fell for it. Instead of giving us power, it placed a curse on us, one that is passed on to our children. Only a tiny minority didn’t drink the potion; their offspring have more than rudimentary magic.”
Saga gave me a wry smile. “Now only the ones with magic can gather stardust. They sell it to the rest of us for outrageous sums or in exchange for labor. They’ve inflated the price so high most people can’t afford it at all. People are getting desperate, which is what the rioting is about. Today it was about food. Tomorrow it will be something else. But that’s not the biggest problem.”
Argus took up the story. “The dragons feed on the moon when it is full. When they’ve consumed half of it, we use stardust to replenish what the dragons have eaten. Then it grows back to its normal size. But without stardust, we can’t. Each month, a few places don’t heal. It’s only a matter of a few months before it disintegrates. And vanishes completely.”
Saga shook her head. “Without the moon to feed them, we’ll have dragons on the rampage.”
I tipped my head back and stared at the moon. This couldn’t be true. “But why don’t the magicians fix the moon themselves?”
“Because they don’t care,” Saga said, bitterness dripping from her words. “They love the power they control without having to share it with anyone else. If they ruin this world, they will easily find another. Something the rest of us can’t do.”
I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to keep breathing. “I’m sorry about all that,” I said. “But what does that have to do with Aunt Linda?”
Argus rubbed his chin. “The three who fell through the portal belonged to a rebel group that was trying to restore everyone’s magic. They’d figured out that an enchanted beacon controlled the curse. The rebels pooled all their power and created a sheath that would fuse with the beacon, destroying it and breaking the curse. A brilliant, elegant solution.”
“So why not put the sheath on the beacon?”
“They didn’t know where it was. The magicians kept moving it.” Saga twisted her hands together. “When they met your aunt by accident, they realized that she was the perfect person to give the sheath to. She agreed to hide it for them until they figured out where the beacon was. They enchanted a bottle and gave it to her. Every year on New Year’s, she pops the cork. If it opened the portal, that would mean they knew where to place the sheath, and she should either come herself or give it to someone else and send them through.”
“That makes no sense,” I said. “How would she find you?”
Saga grinned. “Because they spelled the portal to a certain location. We just needed to have someone nearby.” She gestured at Argus. “Too bad it happened to be in the middle of a riot.”
“You’re saying my Aunt Linda has been holding this magic sheath from a parallel universe for what, sixty, seventy years?”
“That’s about right,” Saga said.
“And she agreed to bring the sheath to you.”
“Well—”
Argus interrupted her. “The intent was that she hand over the sheath and return home. That was before things got complicated.”
Frowning, I asked, “What do you mean?”
“We didn’t know the new ruling elite could track the movements of everyone who was under the curse. If anyone gets near the beacon, the rulers know. Usually, they kill anyone who lingers too long.”
“Oh.” I thought about the implications of his words. Heat rose in my face. “You want me to try?”
Saga nodded, her eyes wide and pleading. “You’re the only one who can. You’re not under the curse.”
Argus nodded, his head bobbing in time with Saga’s. “Since you aren’t being tracked, anyone who notices you will think you’re one of the elite. They won’t pay any attention to you. You won’t even have to talk with them. Just go inside the building, climb the steps, and slide the sheath over the beacon. Your champagne bottle is a key to the portal. Once the sheath is in place, break the bottle, and it will transport you to your aunt.”
I didn’t understand much of their convoluted explanation, but I knew one thing. “Sorry. Can’t help you.”
Saga’s face twisted and her voice cracked. “If you don’t, our moon will dissipate. Yours will, too.”
Our moon would disappear? Didn’t it stabilize the tilt of our planet? What would happen to the tides, to our climate? I didn’t want to imagine what destruction that would cause.
I looked from Saga to Argus. They were serious. I tilted my face and stared at the moon. A tiny, bat-winged silhouette flew across its surface, paused and soared away, another bite-sized chunk of the moon gone.
Swiveling my gaze from Argus to Saga and back again, sincerity and desperation were I all read on their faces. They had to be telling the truth. But were they really freedom fighters? Or were they domestic terrorists? “How can I be certain you’re on the right side?”
“Fair question,” Argus said. He held up a finger. “Do you hear that?”
Wailing filled the air, as did the shrieks of people begging for mercy. He walked to the entrance to the courtyard and peered into the street. “Come and see for yourself. Stand in the shadows so you can’t be seen.”
I moved alongside him and peeked out. The uniformed guards had rounded up a handful of people, one of them a small girl holding a doll. The guards shot them all. I stared at the heap of bodies until the echoes of the gunfire faded.
My mouth sagged open, and I froze in place, torn between wanting to turn away, to unsee the horror before me, and unable to tear my eyes from the carnage. My stomach heaved and sour bile assaulted my taste buds. I clamped a hand over my mouth. When I could speak through my jagged breathing, I could only choke out a single word. “Why?”
“Why? Because they can. No need for trials. Anyone out of line, they get rid of them.”
My knees were shaking. I staggered to the bench and collapsed onto it. Whoever those guards worked for, they needed to be stopped.
Saga sat next to me. “You’ll be perfectly safe. It’s almost certain no one will challenge you or try to stop you. If that happens, just break the bottle, and you’ll be gone. As for us...” Her voice trailed off. “We’ll die a slow death. Your world will survive for a time. But your seasons will be out of whack. I’m not sure what turmoil that will cause. And once we die, your world will die, too.”
“I wish I could help you. But it’s impossible.”
“But—”
I cut Saga off. “I don’t have the sheath.”
“Oh, but you do,” Argus said.
“No, I don’t. Aunt Linda didn’t give me anything.”
Copyright © 2022 by Evelyn Puerto
