Chapter 6. The Enchanted Forest
`We’ll have to assume those geezers will wise up and come back looking for us sooner or later,’ said Seraphinaria.
`Let’s not dive into the trees too close to where they spotted us,’ said Valmyristarsis. `If we walk a ways further it might work to our advantage. Not too much farther of course, maybe another three hundred feet. We gotta get off this road fast, and we gotta cover up our footsteps in the snow with more snow, and that’s a slow job, but let’s not dive into the trees here.’
This advice seemed wise or at least plausibly so. Roughly a hundred paces further down the road they found a spot which seemed as good as any other place to leave the road and begin a hike through deep powdery snow, beneath a forest of tall pines. Seraphinaria, carrying her youngest kid, the three-year-old Jay-Jay, led the way. Everyone behind her tried to step in her footsteps. Al brought up the rear. It was his job to wield a four square foot piece of canvas with which to fan the snow so that it blew into their tracks, and thereby eliminated those tracks. Misevasundia, hovering close to Al, held up a torch in the form of a burning pine bough to give Al some illumination, something to help him inspect the quality of his work. There was no sense for Al to go to all this trouble if he couldn’t make their tracks invisible. And there was no sense giving up too quickly either. Even so, they only put two hundred yards between themselves and the road before Al had his fill of the job and insisted on calling it quits. They set up their tents more or less on the spot where Al kneeled in the snow panting and gasping for breath.
The next morning the sky was clear but the wind was howling and blowing snow like a typical blizzard. These were perfect conditions for their purposes as the footsteps they left behind them disappeared in a matter of minutes. There was one hitch to otherwise perfect conditions. They were a mile away at a minimum, perhaps further, but they could hear the baying of hounds. To hide in the trees might only delay their capture. They set a zigzag course through the forest but soon the trees in the forest grew further and further apart. They reached an open plain. They had no way of knowing how wide this open plain extended as the blowing snow eclipsed from sight everything beyond fifty feet. The dilemma was of this variety: If they tried to cross the open plain and grew exhausted, they would have no wood to build fires. This was no problem if the cold didn’t intensify any further. But if the temperature plunged another 20 or 30 degrees, and if they had no way to light fires, they would not be able to prevent the littlest kids, or perhaps even the adults, from either getting frostbit or from outright freezing to death. They could raise the tents and bundle up inside the tents, but then if a pack of hounds was to surround them, a posse of men might also soon surround them. They had no choice but to risk crossing the open plain. By caring their canteens under their cloaks they could keep their drinks from freeing. These canteens carried coffee laden with sugar mixed with whiskey, as this combination, mixed to varying degrees, was the preferred thing to drink on long cold exhausting marches. They ventured out on to the plain. The littlest kids had the advantage of following behind, therefore they walked through snow which was trampled down by the adults and older kids ahead of them. But even kids hardened by months of hard marching find it impossible to walk over even easy terrain for much longer than four straight hours. After four hours of marching the wood they needed to build a fire was still nowhere to be found. Both the 3-year-old Jay-Jay and 4-year-old Curt looked close to death as they staggered through the clouds of blowing snow. Both insisted their fingers and toes were not cold, both insisted that as long as they kept moving they were warm, but how much longer could the little guys keep moving before they fell down exhausted and unable to walk a step further? Whiskey and coffee laden with sugar can fuel a human being only so far before the inevitable collapse must happen. The spirit of man is indomitable up to a point, but beyond the breaking point, beyond the point where a kid will be crushed to death by cold and exhaustion, there was no negotiating with the ferocity of Nature, no arguing with her and her resolve to execute those who had exceeded their breaking points. Their moms would have loved to carry Jay-Jay and Curt, but to do so was to ensure frozen fingers and toes, and then their sons would die of gangrene if their frozen fingers and toes were not amputated. The only way they could keep their kids from freezing was to make them keep walking. It brought tears to the eyes of their mothers to see their little boys stagger and fall, and then rise to their feet again only to stagger onwards a few more paces before falling again to the ground, then rising again and having more whiskey and more coffee laden with sugar poured down their throats, which gave them the energy to stagger onwards for perhaps another 100 or 200 yards before they again fell to the snow like they were dead, only to be revived and dragged to their feet again by their mothers, who were themselves losing the strength to pull their sons upright and thereby begin the death march anew. And then the dog pack closed in on them. The adults and the older kids formed a wall around the younger kids to keep those kids from being attacked by the dogs, which were primarily Rottweilers and Dobermans, with a few Pit bulls. The dogs were wary of the long knives but they still tried to break through the rings of knives to get at the littlest kids. But the dogs didn’t have much to get their jaws around. The thick woolen cloaks worn bu the adults rotected their arms and most of their legs. Every time one of the dogs jumped for someone’s throat a knife slashed his belly and spilled his guts. Still there might have been 50 big vicious hunting dogs in the pack that some Krull posse set upon them, and by late afternoon the adults had barely enough strength to swing their knives and stab at the dogs encircling them. But the dogs were losing strength as well. Many of the smaller ones had already lain down exhausted; and if a dog was weak from loss of blood it would soon freeze completely. At one point Al stood still and let three of the more energetic dogs sink their fangs into his thick woolen pants above his ankles. He felt some pain, through the layers of thick wool pants under his thick leather trousers saved him from a lot more pain. He was able to stand where he was, above the three dogs, as he stabbed the vicious beasts until they bled to death. By this tactic the other dogs saw the futility of trying to bite any of the adult. They all wore layers of clothing as thick as Al’s. The dogs simply circled round and round until they dropped exhausted from their wounds and from the bitter cold. There they either bled to death or froze to death in the frigid arctic winds. The last three dogs still living, three huge Rottweilers, finally threw themselves at the wall of adults and big kids surrounding the littlest kids. The adults and big kids just kept jabbing their knives, stabbing at eyes and noses and fangs. Once in a while they were able to take an uppercut that found its mark in the throat of one of the dogs. At last it was three adults surrounding each dog. One person would fall on a dog and get it to the ground while the other two drove their knives into its heart.
`Let’s….have…another…look…at those maps,’ gasped Heliomirabellisima when the last dog had died. It took her a minute or two to catch her breath. `What we want to do is find another road, one where horses and carts have laid down a path through the snow. Maybe we won’t get so drunk any time soon. Maybe we’ll keep a better watch out for the pursuit. Of course we’ll travel at night and try to be invisible.’
The single moms crowded around Seraphinaria and her maps; they determined that once they reached the forest, which they were now fast approaching, they would have to hike another 10 miles, again through knee-deep snow, before they reached a road of any significance. That would be impossible to do today because they were already exhausted so they decided to raise the tents and camp where they were, even though it was just past 2 in the afternoon. They could grab a few hours of rest and then march on until they were exhausted again. If only they could find some trees to convert into firewood! They had three tents in all; each one was large enough to sleep 4 adults and 10 kids. The recent nights had been frosty but still warm enough for even the l
ittlest kids to almost want to kick off their eiderdown comforters. But today winds out of the north brought temperatures which plunged to 20 degrees below zero. Everyone would of course have to bundle up to keep from freezing, and even with every blanket and comforter covering them, everyone would need some whiskey to stay somewhat comfortable at minus 20. The temperature that night would probably drop to 40 degrees below zero, and at that temperature the only way the adults could prevent the littlest kids from suffering frostbite would be to bundle them up as much as possible, and then make them walk, and make sure they never stopped walking. At 40 degrees below zero, even when bundled up inside the tents, out of the howling wind, the fingers and toes of the little kids would soon be frozen solid soon after they sleep. It was all very simple actually, at 40 degrees below zero: should they have no wood to build fires then they would just have to keep moving. And if they were too exhausted to keep moving then the littlest kids would die first, but everyone would freeze to death eventually.
They got the tents up some time after 2 in the afternoon but by 4 Jay-Jay and Curt were complaining that their toes were freezing. Martha, the member of the party who knew the most about surviving in a Siberian climate, as she had lived for a few years in Minneapolis, massaged Curt’s feet until she got the blood circulating in them again, while Seraphinaria did the same for Jay-Jay. Curt and Jay-Jay then put on layers of felt socks inside of several wool stockings inside of sheepskin boots inside of leather moccasins. Then Katie made everyone drink as much water as possible. Much of their water supply was already frozen but they could melt some of it by carrying their canteens close to their bodies and beneath their thick cloaks. It was easy to stay warm in the far north if you kept moving. But you need lots of food and water to keep your body moving. The thought that some of them might die of thirst before they froze to death occurred to Martha, though she didn’t think it necessary to voice this opinion. While everyone was shivering, the howling winds outside their tents suddenly faded away. Al sprang out of his blankets and dashed outside of the tent he was in to see if he could see anything, such as a nearby forest. To the west, about half a mile away, seen through swirling snow that was settling in the calm air, was a wall of evergreens. Al then told everyone that they would survive, firewood was nearby, fire to warm themselves was only minutes away, though everyone was still too numb and too exhausted to celebrate the good news.
Having reached the trees, having dragged themselves the last few yards, everyone was aware that they would be saved as soon as they got the fire starter. But they hadn’t gotten the fire started yet. The sparks sent flying from the steel striking the flint stone continued to hit the tinder, and if the smoke blew out most of the time, nevertheless, at last, it didn’t stop smoking, and then a little flame sprang up, upon which, at first, a few pine needles where added by Seraphinaria, and then more and more pine needles were added, whereupon the flames flew higher and became strong enough to consume larger and larger twigs. Soon branches were cast on to the flames, and then whole trunks of dead trees were hurled into the inferno. Martha Manning, who came through the portal from our universe to this parallel universe several years back, was carrying her mp3 player at the time. She was also carrying her speakers and lots of batteries. She broke these out of her pack to get the party started. Even though the kids didn’t have to start dancing to keep from freezing to death now that the fire was blazing away, they seemed to have lots of energy after their nap. And with this energy they realized they had lots to celebrate, after the dogs that tried to rip their throats out had all died, after they found themselves still alive and not frozen to death. Besides, the kids always had to start dancing every time they heard the music that Martha had on her MP3, which was eclectic mix including everything from death metal and Lady Gaga to the standard classics from ABBA, Journey, Boston, Van Halen, Judas Priest and Motley Crue, along with Ennio Morricone’s The Ecstasy of Gold, Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. Katy Perry’s Teenage Dream was always popular. The weird thing was it was the warrior women more than the girls who liked to sing along with Katy Perry when she would start in: `You think I’m pretty without any makeup on / You think I’m funny when I get the punch-line wrong / I know you get me when I let my walls come down…
5-year-old Jocelyn, who liked to be close to the 6-year-old Hugh, had fallen asleep by the fire close to him. The cold snap had lasted for three days. One night it fell to 50 degrees below zero. In that sort of weather there was little they could do save spend half the day gathering deadwood to fuel the fire and the other half sleeping, or preparing meals, or lounging about playing cards or chess in the warmth of the fire. On the fourth day there was a tremendous rush of warm south wind. Now they were slipping around and trying their best to stay dry amid all the melting snow. After Jocelyn, Hugh and a few of the other kids woke from their sleep they were informed it was almost time to press on toward to Menzies. But Jocelyn and Hugh still had a few minutes to chat with each other in whispers as they lay under their blankets by the campfire.
`I wasn’t sure how to reply to what you were talking about earlier,’ said Hugh to Jocelyn. `But after sleeping on things I see everything clearly now.’
`1 don’t like the sound of that,’ said Jocelyn. `I just asked you to be more open about your feelings. I want you to be comfortable enough in our relationship to express your deepest and sincerest thoughts. Now you say you had to sleep on this to know how to respond. You seem so calculating sometimes. Why can’t you be honest and spontaneous? How do you think that makes me feel when you have to sleep on everything?’
`Unloved? You always say you feel unloved,’ said Hugh. `So, taking a wild guess here, let me guess, it makes you feel, it’s just a guess now – unloved – yes, it makes you feel unloved - even though I’ve told you a thousand times that I love you.’
`And I’ve asked you a thousand times: “How do I know you love me?” Just because you say you love me, how do I know it is legit?’ asked Jocelyn.
`Well, if I said I love you so very very much that if I found out you were cheating on me with some guy, I would murder both you and the guy, and then I’d kill myself, because, I would know we could never be together after I killed you, and if I knew I could never be with you, then I would be in such despair that I would kill myself - if I said something like that then you would get on my case for being so violent and crazy. But if I said, I wouldn’t be all that upset if I learned you were cheating on me with some other guy, then you would say that I don’t love you. So, I can’t win with you no matter what I say.’
`That’s not true at all, insisted Jocelyn. `You just have to be honest with me.’
`OK, I’ll be honest with you. I don’t trust a woman who says she loves me but then also says she would never try to hurt me if she caught me cheating on her with another girl. That sort of “love” is like 3.2 beer, it’s as weak as water. If you really love someone, and then if he stabs you in the back by cheating on you, then you will want to get even. If you don’t want to get revenge, then you don’t really love him.’
`Your sort of love sounds like a gangster’s code,’ said Jocelyn.
`But can’t you understand what I’m saying?’ asked Hugh.
`Oh I can understand it. You want an obsessive sort of love, a stalker’s sort of love. You want to feel so totally devoted to someone that your love for her crosses into madness! Whereas with me, I want the sort of love where a guy will buy me roses the day after I get sick in bed and vomit all over him. I want a guy who will love me for richer or for poorer.’
`We’re definitely not talking about the same sort of love.’
`No, my sort of love doesn’t involve any gruesome scenes full bloodshed and long prison sentences.’
`But your sort of love is a pale imitation of real love. If a guy buys you roses the day after you get sick and vomit on him, that just means he knows that for most days, though not on every single day, but on most days, you’re a decen
t catch for him, and in order to keep you happy, and in order to avoid paying lots of alimony to you, to avoid getting hammered in divorce court, a guy knows he has to do certain things to keep his wife happy, certain things any robot can be programmed to do: remember your birthday, remember your anniversary, remember to buy you gifts for no special reason, remember to buy you flowers after you have had a bad day etc., etc. He’s not really in love with you. He just knows that he would be lonely if he wasn’t married to some sort of reasonably attractive female. He has to play the game. He goes along to get along. He’ll put up with a certain amount of BS from a female as long as, overall, he rates that female as a decent catch. But if the female falls into the Very Substandard Category, then he’ll dump the very substandard one, and he’ll suffer what he has to suffer in divorce court, and then he’ll find someone he hopes is better than the last failure of a female that he got mixed up with. If you throw up on a guy, then, by all rights, you should be the one buying him flowers the next day. If a guy buys you roses after you throw-up on him, that merely proves he’s a cunning devil who will stoop to any level of deceit to avoid paying alimony to you. But if you cheat on a guy and then he comes hunting for you and your lover with a butcher knife, then you know he’s really crazy about you, really and truly in love with you.’
`But even if I was attracted to your brand of mad passion, I want him to be crushed by despair not driven into a homicidal rage. If my husband or boyfriend catches me cheating on him, I want him to be so devastated that he seriously thinks about committing suicide: I want him to seriously think about throwing himself off a bridge. I don’t want him to actually commit suicide but I certainly don’t want him to come hunting for me with a knife! Aside from conducting a dangerous experiment, how am I supposed to know if I can trust you when you say that you really really love me?’ asked Jocelyn.
`Well how do I know that you really really love me?’ asked Hugh
`Oh lets change the subject! replied Jocelyn. `Every time we talk about our relationship you always have to argue with me by turning my own words against me. It’s as if you have some sort of egomaniacal complex which drives you to win every argument, which drives you to crush me every time we debate some issue. Don’t deny that you always have to get the last word in.’
`I thought you wanted to change the subject,’ said Hugh. `Well, you change the subject from first insisting that my sort of love is a gangster’s code to the new subject of insisting that I’m an egomaniac. Talk about egomaniacal!’
`See, there you’re doing it again. You exasperate me no end, just like this new mom I got. She’s a piece of work. She just comes waltzing into my life “Hi there kiddo, I’m your new mom! – out with the old and in with the new! – we’re going to get along great, now go pick up the mess in the tent and fetch me my slippers and my hunting spear”. First, they ship me out to the orphanage. Then they ship me out with this group of single moms. Then we cross over the border from Avallonia into Hibernia, and the laws of Hibernia let any woman adopt any orphan if both parties are agreeable. She was the only woman who wanted me. What am I supposed to say, No? I’ll just stay an orphan? Why would I need any monetary support to survive in the world? On the one hand, I needed to find a mom who cares about my emotional needs, about my feelings and my sensitivities. How rare and difficult could it be to find could such a mom? But, on the other hand, you are sort of making a slave of yourself when you let yourself be adopted, when you agree to be some stranger’s kid, at least until you reach the age of 18. The stranger tells you what to eat and what not to eat, when to get up and when to go to bed, what to fetch them and what not to fetch them. On the one hand, it sucks to be an orphan, but on the other hand it sucks to be an unpaid servant also. So I have some plans which I believe I’ve mentioned to you.’
`You’ll always be pissed about having to be a soldier and having to live in the wilderness. And your intentions to litigate are the same as before?’
`I want to hire a lawyer,’ stated Jocelyn. `Oh yes, I intend to tell a judge about how I have been put through hell – sheer absolute hell! - by your mom and by these other mothers, I want to tell a judge about how I want monetary compensation for all the pain and suffering I’ve had to endure ever since I was torn from my friends at Sisters of Mercy Orphanage.’
`Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ said Hugh. `But none of these single moms has any money. They’re all as poor as church mice. The only way you would ever see any `monetary compensation’ – as you phrase it – is if these single moms come into some money. But even if the single moms are successful in rescuing those 1,000 Avallonian prisoners, and successful with books and lecture tours, no judge and no jury in Avallonia is going to take money away from the heroic single moms and give it to you. No, the best way for you to get your hands on some cash, the best way for you to write your own Cinderella Story, as everyone has been telling you, over and over, is still the same advice: 1) stop talking about hiring a lawyer, and 2) try to keep good notes detailing the facts whenever you do something brave: keep excellent notes so you can write an excellent book which will sell lots and lots of copies: remember to jot everything important down on paper so you can speak in an authoritative manner on a lecture tour which will draw in large crowds of paying customers. Like when those dogs were trying to rip your throat out. Don’t talk about how you wanted to sue some people who took you away from your friends at an orphanage when those dogs, and the cold, and exhaustion were making life a living hell for you. Mention instead how you took your knife and how you stabbed one of the dog’s eyes out, which you certainly did. Mentioned how you roared with glee as you proceeded to stab the foul beast to death. If that’s not quite true, then, say you felt like roaring with glee as you stabbed the foul beast to death, but you were too busy gasping for breath. Try to get a feel for what readers want to read. Try to develop a sense for what people attending lectures want to hear.’
`I suppose you’re right. I suppose I’ll have to make my money through heroic deeds and through the shrewd marketing of those heroic deeds, as everyone has been telling me over and over, but I still want to hire a lawyer, and I still want to sue some people.’
`Have it your way. Just keep quiet about your plans though. You can tell me your secrets - I’m in love with after all – I’m crazy about you - but you don’t want some other kid sticking a knife in your back after you talk about suing his mom.’
`I wonder who would be most likely to kill me among this lot?’ asked Jocelyn.
`Probably Morgan. She’s mad about me. So by murdering you she would eliminate her rival. And as her mom is the commanding officer of this company, her mom and your new mom would be the first people your lawyer would target in litigation to get you some monetary compensation.’
`Are you serious? Is Morgan really mad about you?’
`Well, I might be exaggerating things just a little.’
`Are you exaggerating when you say you love me, when you say you’re crazy about me?’
`Oh, no way baby. How can you ask such a thing? I swear I’m mad about you. I’m crazy about you. I love your eyes. Do you know how gorgeous your eyes are? They just knock me out. They leave me breathless. I feel my heart racing every time I look in your eyes. I wonder sometimes if my heart is going to explode: do you know what that feels like when your heart just gets racing so fast it feels like it’s going to explode? It’s pure bliss, but a little terrifying too.’
On the trek north and west to Menzies the weather cooperated enough to at least get no colder than minus ten degrees at night, which, inside the tents, was more than enough for everyone to stay warm and cozy. They avoided the roads and trusted their luck to the wilderness. It was on a road after all where a posse, though it first ignored them, on second thought set a large pack of vicious hunting dogs after them. Everyone agreed it was better to endure the hardships of the rough country rather than have easy strolls down roads where who knew wh
at sorts of posses and hellhounds lurked round the next bend. There was some discussion of how they would free the prisoners. They tossed out facile ideas about digging a tunnel under the streets and into the prison, but, ultimately, everyone seemed to know instinctively what had to be done. They needed to get jobs in bars and taverns round the prison. They needed to find out who the guards were who worked at the prison. They needed to find out where these guards lived and whether or not they had any children. Then the day would arrive when they would strike. They would break into the houses or apartments of one or more of these guards. They would hold knives to the throats of various children and they would threaten to cut the throats of those kids if they didn’t get a good deal of cooperation from their parents. Of course they were not barbarians; they were never going to make those threats come to reality: but they had to appear to be barbarians: they had to be good enough actors to be believable when they made those threats. With the cooperation of these parents / guards, they had a chance to free 1,000 Avallonian prisoners of war. So, the first order of business upon reaching Menzies was to find jobs in restaurants and taverns as waitresses, as a waiter in Al’s case. Then they had to find apartments or at least boarding houses, as it would never work if they continued to live in tents, and then, once they were in position, they should be able to find out where the guards with the kids lived. Katie and Debra would have to lay low because they were wanted for the crime of being traitors to the nation of Hibernia, and their descriptions were in every police station, or at least they were pretty sure they were. Katie and Debra could perhaps help to see that some kids got to and from school safely, and the kids would have to go to school if they were to blend in and not arouse suspicion. But beyond that there was little that Katie and Debra could do until the night arrived when they would help to liberate the prisoners.
Finally the day arrived when they stood atop a hill and looked down up the city of Menzies, a metropolis of more than 3 million people. The adults agreed to meet every Saturday evening at 7:00 pm atop this same hill that they now stood upon. Al, who was sort of the boyfriend of most of the single moms - though perhaps he felt closest to Heliomirabellisima, Valmyristarsis and Navorrasicaa - would have to separate himself from everyone. Seraphinaria decided it would be ok if Martha Manning tagged along with Katie and Debra. It might help her to keep out of trouble if she did. Any of the single moms could of course acknowledge her own kids in public but that was all. If, for instance Misevasundia passed Al, or Debra, or Brent on the street, they would all pretend they didn’t know each other. And they would all claim to be refugees from the North of Krull, the poorest and most desolate part of the Krull Republic, and, according to Katie and Debra at least, no one would be too suspicious of that story. It would look suspicious if a group of people all from the North of Krull began to apply for jobs at taverns round the prison, and if they all began to make applications for same apartments. So, everyone got her own set of streets and her own set of bars and restaurants and apartments to apply at. On the trek north the adults stressed to the kids over and over: `When you get to your new school in Menzies don’t ask a kid you don’t know very well where his mom works. If a kid asks you where your mom works then it’s ok to ask her where her mom works. But don’t be the first person to ask. We need you to get information for us; we need to know about people who work at the prison; but we don’t want you to be too aggressive in getting information. We don’t want you to arouse suspicion.’
Of course the kids were never told that the adults planned on threatening to kill some kids if their parents didn’t cooperate, but then the kids were not incapable of jumping to a conclusion or two, and speculations spread pretty fast among the kids about what was up and about what exactly was going down.