“What did you do?” Angrily a woman scolded him. “Get off the marns! They’re almost dead! Why, they’re flatter than a Doldale coin. What were you thinking? Step lightly, now.” She was fat and sweaty, with her face all scrunched up and puckered like a prune and she was stomping the ground with a thick walking stick.
Tommy rolled off the flattened marns onto his hands and knees and the coin he had in his pocket fell at his fingertips.
The old woman’s eyes fixed on the pink coin and her face changed into a near approximation of a smile. “A pink. You have a pink, I see. Are you a visiTOR?” She pronounced it just like Zerd.
Tommy got up and nodded.
“Are you hungry? I’ll give you a whole dinner for that pink coin. A whole dinner and two blue coins in change.”
Tommy had no idea what a pink or a blue coin was worth, but he sure was hungry and dinner sounded great. He passed over the pink coin and the old woman gave him two blue coins from her pocket. Then she cracked off the rounded top of the walking stick and bit into it as she shoved the rest of the stick in Tommy face. “There you go, boy. Enjoy and step lightly,” she said as she chewed noisily, crunching on another bit of the piece. She mumbled under her breath, “Can’t have a visiTOR eating the best part.”
“Wait a minute,” Tommy began, but the old woman was fast. She jumped over a marn at the side of the trail, bent down and grabbed a handful of the blue grass, then disappeared behind a humongous tree trunk.
Tommy was stunned. He had just bought a walking stick for dinner. He looked at it. It appeared to be a giant pretzel. The top part where she had broken off the rounded head was flaky and warm. He smelled the top. Hot pretzel. He bit off a tiny portion and rolled it around on his tongue before chewing it up. Yum. He broke off a bigger piece and stuffed it into his watering mouth. Delicious. This wasn’t a bad deal after all. And he had two blue coins left. Perhaps Zerd and the old woman were nice, generous citizens of Doldale.
He looked around for a place to sit and eat. The flattened marns were starting to puff back up; he hadn’t killed them after all, but maybe he shouldn’t stick around here. There was that lion to worry about up the trail and apparently the marns had parents that could crush him. He didn’t want to go back down the trail and walk hours and hours back to where Zerd and Gwinn were. He stood and ate and thought.
The walking stick was changing flavors now. The center was meaty and juicy and a bit salty. Tommy was just beginning to worry about getting thirsty when he broke off a piece and saw that the hollow center was filled with liquid. He drank down the cool refreshing fluid in mighty gulps, following it with a satisfied belch. The bottom of the stick was dessert, sort of like a peach cobbler with a crunchy sugary crust. Not bad.
As he ate he made a decision to follow the old woman and not stick to the trail. Though Zerd had told him to always take the left fork he didn’t think that was possible with the lion up the way. Maybe the old woman would help him if he gave her back the blue coins.
He stepped over the marn and followed the crushed blue grass that marked the old woman’s steps. He noticed where she had pulled up a handful of blades and wondered why she had done that. Then he moved around the giant tree and stepped in front of a welcome mat. A likeness of the old woman’s face was embroidered on it in the middle. Above it said “Lorlynn” and below in fancy script was written “Step lightly”. There was a door on the tree with a glass window. He put one foot on the mat and reached forward about to knock. As he put his second foot on the mat he began to descend, his outstretched hand scraping the knuckles on the bark. Then before he could jump off there was a sudden “swhoosh” sound and the welcome mat/elevator landed ten feet below and he fell down at the feet of the old woman.
“How rude, boy! Don’t you know to knock before you enter? Terkling visiTOR.” She mumbled that last part under her breath, obviously cursing him.
“I’m sorry,” Tommy stuttered, “I just wanted to ask you for help.” He stood up and as he did the welcome mat shot upwards.
“Help? What kind of help? You’ve already done your sleeping, and on the marns, too. And you’ve eaten your dinner, I see. So what could I do for you? I’m busy, visiTOR, I have to make another dinner.” She turned away from him and took two steps to a large cauldron that was tipped on its side. Tommy could see it was full of blue grass and there was half a walking stick being used as a stirring spoon. The old woman, Lorlynn, grabbed the end of the stick and made two stirs in one direction and two more in the other. The stick grew longer.
“I just want to get home. How do the other visitors, I mean visiTORS, get home?” Tommy slumped his shoulders and tried to look pathetic, hoping she would take pity on him. “Please, Miss Lorlynn, please help me.”
“I can’t show you or we’ll both be in the dungeon. Better you ask Mr. Zerd.” She turned her back again and stirred some more.
“Mr. Zerd told me to always take the left fork and pay for what I eat. He gave me the pink coin that said Doldale that I used to pay for the dinner you gave me. But I can’t take the left fork because there’s a lion or some kind of beast up that way.” He paused for breath but Lorlynn answered.
“If you’ve already talked to Zerd then you know all you have to know. I don’t know what a lion is, but if there’s some kind of beast on the left fork path, then it was left there by another visiTOR and it shouldn’t do YOU any harm. Just ignore it. Now climb up the tree there and be gone,” she nodded toward a series of rungs that ended at the door with the window. “And jump OVER the terkling mat, don’t forget.”
Tommy started climbing and reached the door, which automatically opened. He leaped over the mat and looked back as the door closed. The old woman’s face was in the window smiling. How did she climb up so fast? Tommy smiled and waved and Lorlynn’s face disappeared.
He went around the tree and found his way back to the path. The marns he had slept on were puffed back up to their original size, but something was different. A tree was growing between them now. It hadn’t been there before. Curiously Tommy felt the bark and ran his hand up and down the trunk. He reached up and put all his weight on a branch. How could such a thing happen so quickly? Time was all screwed up here.
The leaves of this incredible new tree were as blue as every other growing thing. But as he looked up into the branches he could see pink rectangles scattered throughout. They looked just like sticks of gum. Tommy remembered that he had been chewing gum before he fell asleep on the marns. Could this tree have grown from the one piece he had chewed?
He jumped up and threw his leg up over the limb, nimbly climbing the new tree. He reached for a stick of gum and smelled it before plunging it into his mouth. Yup. It was gum, all right, the same flavor he had been chewing. Maybe he should drop his coins, he thought, and start a bank.
He dropped to the ground and started down the left fork.
Tommy had gone just about as far as he thought he had gone before and he expected to encounter the lion at any moment. He started to tiptoe just in case the beast was sleeping and he could pass unnoticed. Then he saw it. It was sleeping; in fact it was snoring loudly, under the shade of a new blue paper tree. All the paper looked like gum wrappers. It almost made sense, the gum tree, now the gum wrapper tree, but what about the lion? What had some visiTOR left to create such a monster? A stuffed animal?
He kept creeping on, following the path, stepping lightly around the smallest of marns, chewing his gum, thinking and wondering. What would happen next?